An unidentified cobbler sits at his low work bench surrounded by the complete tools and materials of his trade in this full-length occupational portrait produced by Warren's Fine Portraits, 465 Washington Street, Boston. The composition is deliberately arranged to display every element of the shoemaker's craft, making it one of the more thorough occupational portraits of its type in the cabinet card format.

The man sits on a low wooden bench with one leg crossed, holding a curved lasting tool or awl in both hands in a working posture. He wears a flat-brimmed dark felt hat, a striped work shirt with rolled sleeves, a leather apron, and dark trousers with leather boot-tops visible below the knee. Spread across the floor before him are shoe lasts of multiple sizes, leather soles, a completed shoe upper, a hammer, shears, assorted small tools, and scraps of leather and cloth. Behind him a wooden tool tray holds additional implements including handles, brushes, and blades, and a wooden bucket sits at the left.

Warren's Fine Portraits at 465 Washington Street was among Boston's leading commercial studios, operating at various Washington Street addresses through the latter decades of the nineteenth century and producing work for a broad clientele from working-class occupational portraits to society commissions.

The studio imprint appears in gold script on the front mount along the lower border and in rust-colored diagonal lettering on the reverse, with penciled notations reading "2/11/10 / LBBAA12 / Eb."