The Bronze Horseman is the celebrated equestrian statue of Peter the Great located in Senate Square, Saint Petersburg, and this albumen-print CDV captures the monument in a striking low-angle view that silhouettes the rearing horse and its rider against an open sky. The photograph belongs to a numbered series of Saint Petersburg views and was issued with a bilingual imprint along the lower border; no photographer's studio imprint appears on the mount itself. The warm sepia tone and card stock are consistent with a date in the 1860s to 1870s.

The statue dominates the composition, with the tsar depicted in Roman dress atop a rearing horse, one foreleg raised above the massive Thunder Stone pedestal. The pedestal inscription, legible in the photograph, reads in Latin: "Petro Primo Catharina Secunda," meaning "To Peter the First from Catherine the Second." An ornate cast-iron fence with repeating arch-and-panel motifs runs the full width of the foreground, a gas street lamp rises at the left, and the colonnaded facade of a neoclassical building is faintly visible at the far left edge.

Commissioned by Catherine II and attributed to the French sculptor Étienne Maurice Falconet, the monument was unveiled in 1782 on Senate Square; the tsar's face was sculpted by Falconet's student Marie Collot from Peter's death mask. The composition depicts Peter the Great atop a rearing horse with his outstretched arm reaching toward the Neva River and a serpent crushed beneath the horse's hoof.

The lower border of the photograph bears the printed bilingual caption "ПАМЯТНИКЪ ПЕТРУ ВЕЛИКОМУ / 9 / MONUMENT DE PIERRE LE GRAND" (Monument to Peter the Great / 9 / Monument of Pierre the Great), indicating series number 9 within a souvenir view set. The reverse is inscribed in pencil "Statue Peter the Great."