Modeled on Trajan's Column in Rome and sheathed in bronze panels cast from captured cannon, the Vendôme Column had stood at the center of the Place Vendôme as the defining monument of Napoleonic triumph. This albumen silver stereoview, printed on an orange-bordered card and numbered 3097 within the "Désastres de la Guerre" (Disasters of the War) series, documents the square in the immediate aftermath of the column's destruction. The photographer is identified on the mount only by the initials "J.A.," and no studio imprint appears on the reverse.

The foreground is anchored by a cannon and caisson positioned beside a tall cast-iron street lamp, both casting strong shadows across the cobblestoned square. Behind them, the wreckage of the fallen column lies scattered across the Place Vendôme in massive bronze and stone fragments, the curved drum sections of the shaft clearly identifiable among the debris. Figures and horses are visible at the edge of the rubble, and the uniform neoclassical facades of the surrounding buildings fill the background.

On May 16, 1871, Communards pulled down the Vendôme Column, an act that symbolized their commitment to break with imperial injustices. The Third Republic subsequently ordered its restoration, placing the cost upon the painter Gustave Courbet, unjustly accused of having ordered its destruction. Barely two years later, in 1873, Marshal de MacMahon had an identical copy reconstructed, making views like this one among the few direct photographic records of the column's absence.

Recto imprint reads: "DÉSASTRES DE LA GUERRE / 3097. COLONNE VENDÔME ABATTUE LE 16 MAI 1871, J.A." (Disasters of the War / 3097. Vendôme Column Felled on May 16, 1871, J.A.). The reverse bears a pencil notation reading "4/01/07" and the name "LOHIEZ."