A bearded young man photographed from the waist up against a plain studio ground, rendered as an albumen silver print carte-de-visite by E. Appert of Paris and almost certainly dating to 1871, when the studio was operating at 24, rue Taitbout during its most historically significant period. Appert gained exclusive access to makeshift prisons holding Paris Commune detainees and issued many of the resulting portraits as cartes-de-visite, while also integrating the Communards' faces into his propagandistic photomontage series. The subject's direct, wide-eyed upward gaze, tousled hair, and disheveled appearance are consistent with the raw character of the Versailles prison portraits in Appert's documented body of work from this campaign.

The man wears a coarse sack coat open over a button-front waistcoat and a collarless shirt, none of it formal, suggesting working-class dress rather than bourgeois attire. His beard is full and trimmed to a point at the chin, his hair swept forward in loose waves, and his expression carries a stark, unsettled intensity that distinguishes this image from a conventional society portrait.

The Appert brothers specialized in portrait photography of political figures of every persuasion, including sovereigns, nobles, deputies, senators, and magistrates, but it is their prison portraiture of 1871 for which the studio is most historically consequential. The Communard trials were the first time photography was used for trial purposes, constituting the world's first mug shots; court photographer Appert supplied his Versailles portraits to the military tribunal and offered them as tokens for the families of prisoners.

The recto mount is printed at lower left "E. APPERT. PHOTO. / Déposé" and at lower right "Reproduction / interdite." The reverse bears the full studio imprint identifying Appert as "Photographe du Corps Législatif" and "Photographe de la Magistrature," operating at 24, Rue Taitbout, Paris, with silver medals noted for 1853, 1855, 1859, and 1867. A handwritten inscription in ink at the lower center of the reverse reads "Leon" (the subject's name as written on the mount).