The Plan de Paris represents one of the last great achievements of the tradition of large-scale perspective city plans, combining the precision of topographical surveying with the visual qualities of an architectural panorama. Rather than depicting the city through a conventional two-dimensional street plan, Bretez employed an elevated, oblique perspective, allowing the viewer to appreciate the individual buildings and their relationship to the surrounding urban landscape. The result is an exceptionally rich record of Paris during the reign of Louis XV, in which, as Millard observes, "all the buildings of Paris, including the civic structures, churches, and even private houses with their courts and gardens, are represented in three-dimensional quarter view".

Michel-Étienne Turgot (1690–1751), Prévôt des Marchands de Paris, an office whose responsibilities approximated those of a modern mayor, commissioned the project in 1734 as part of an initiative to promote the prestige and magnificence of the French capital. The undertaking was entrusted to Louis Bretez, a specialist in perspective drawing, who spent approximately two years surveying the city and its surroundings. Granted permission to enter private properties, courtyards and gardens, Bretez was able to document architectural details ordinarily inaccessible to the public. His drawings were subsequently transferred to copperplates by Claude Lucas, resulting in a monumental plan published in 1739.

The city is represented from an imaginary elevated viewpoint, with the principal façades, monuments and gardens rendered in remarkable detail. Among the many identifiable landmarks are the Louvre, the Tuileries, Notre-Dame, the Luxembourg Palace, the Place des Vosges and the Bastille, the latter demolished following the French Revolution. The plan also documents the dense network of streets, religious establishments, aristocratic residences and private gardens that characterised Paris before the extensive urban interventions undertaken under Baron Haussmann in the nineteenth century.

Beyond its cartographical accomplishment, Turgot's plan constitutes an important primary source for the architectural, social and urban history of Paris. Its representation of individual properties and the configuration of entire neighbourhoods offers evidence for the study of buildings subsequently altered or demolished, as well as the changing relationship between public spaces, private residences and the city's religious and civic institutions. The work also reflects the growing importance of urban cartography as an instrument of civic representation during the eighteenth century, when increasingly elaborate plans were commissioned not only to describe cities but also to convey their political, cultural and economic standing.

The contemporary binding with the arms of the City of Paris is particularly appropriate to the official character of the undertaking. Copies bearing these arms were associated with the presentation and distribution of the plan among members of the administration and other distinguished recipients, reinforcing its role as an expression of municipal identity and royal Parisian grandeur.

Cohen-de Ricci, 806.