A pencil drawing of a young man named Léon, photographed as a CDV by Georges (de Lapersonne) of Versailles and dated March 13, 1871, presents one of the more charged funerary documents to survive from the turbulent months following the Franco-Prussian War. The subject of the drawing, not the photograph, is signed by the artist Louis Girardot, indicating the CDV is a photographically reproduced copy of an original graphite work commissioned to memorialize the deceased.

The recumbent figure lies on his back with his head tilted upward and his eyes closed, his dark hair neatly combed. He wears a loosely draped open shirt, and his hands are folded across his chest clasping a round pocket watch or medallion suspended on a short chain. The draftsmanship is precise, with confident shading defining the jaw, collar, and wrist; a small cross or key hangs at his throat.

Georges, the studio name used by Georges de Lapersonne, operated at 18 rue de la Paroisse in Versailles beginning in February 1869, placing this CDV squarely within his earliest active years. The date of March 13, 1871 situates the death in the tense interval between the armistice ending the Franco-Prussian War and the outbreak of the Paris Commune five days later, a period of acute social grief across the Île-de-France.

The reverse bears a handwritten dedication in ink reading: "à Mon Hélène tant chérie, Il prie pour nous! / Pauvre Léon qu'une fille indigne de trop pur amour conduisit au tombeau, ...!!" (To my Hélène so dearly loved, He prays for us! / Poor Léon, whom an unworthy girl, through too pure a love, led to the grave). The studio imprint reads "Georges. Phot. / Versailles" printed in red along the left edge of the mount.