The Boulevard de Sébastopol was one of Baron Haussmann's first great projects of the Second Empire, forming part of the "Grande croisée de Paris" intended to link the Boulevard de Strasbourg to the Seine. This albumen silver print stereoview belongs to the "Paris Instantané" series, a notable commercial stereoview publication documenting Parisian street life in the second half of the nineteenth century, and captures the newly opened boulevard from an elevated vantage point looking north toward its full Haussmannian length. The photographer is unidentified; no studio imprint appears on the card.

The scene is animated with the full energy of mid-to-late nineteenth-century Paris: horse-drawn omnibuses and private carriages occupy the wide roadway, pedestrians in dark frock coats and full skirts crowd both the sidewalks and the central median, and young street trees planted along the boulevard's broad footways cast slender shadows across the paving stones. The flanking Haussmannian apartment blocks rise in uniform limestone façades with continuous iron balconies at the first and third floors, arched ground-floor shop fronts hung with canvas awnings, and mansard rooftops above, their regulated cornice heights and ground-floor commercial bays characteristic of the Haussmannian rebuilding campaign. A monumental public building, likely the Théâtre du Châtelet, is faintly visible at the far southern terminus.

Originally called the "Boulevard du Centre," the boulevard was renamed in September 1855 to celebrate the capture of Sebastopol during the Crimean War by Franco-British forces. A Stanford's Guide of the period described the thoroughfare as "this magnificent new street," opened on 5 April 1858. The stereoview's use of a fast, instantaneous exposure to freeze moving traffic and figures places it among the technically ambitious urban documentation photography that characterized the Paris Instantané series throughout the 1860s–1880s.

The reverse bears a printed paper label reading "PARIS INSTANTANÉ. / BOULEVART SÉBASTOPOL." (Paris Instantaneous. / Boulevard Sébastopol.), with the period variant spelling "Boulevart." The recto carries a handwritten notation in red ink reading "No 17." The reverse also bears a handwritten notation reading "1865" oriented sideways along the right edge.