A rare CDV documenting the fires set along the Rue de Rivoli during the Paris Commune's Bloody Week, captured on the morning of May 24, 1871. The image appears to be a photograph of a drawing or print depicting the scene in real time, consistent with composite or rephotographed documentary images circulated in the immediate aftermath of the Commune. No photographer's imprint is visible on the mount.

The composition shows a broad Parisian street flanked on the left by an intact building with arched ground-floor bays, ornamental ironwork balconies, and shuttered upper windows, while the right side of the street is engulfed in fire and smoke, the facades of adjoining structures reduced to skeletal walls and exposed rooflines. A gas street lamp stands on the right pavement beside an iron fence, and in the left foreground two figures, one wearing a top hat, are visible near the building's entrance arch.

On May 24, the Palais-Royal, the Conciergerie, and other landmarks along this corridor were set ablaze, making the Rue de Rivoli one of the most heavily burned arteries of the semaine sanglante, which lasted from May 21 to May 28, 1871, ending with French government troops reconquering Paris.

The reverse is inscribed in pencil: "rue de Rivoli / matinée du 24 mai 1872" ("Rue de Rivoli / morning of May 24, 1872"), with the year appearing to be a scribal error for 1871. No photographer's imprint appears on either side of the mount.