Six young German students gather in an elaborately staged studio tableau, photographed by Emil Koch, court photographer ("Hofphotograph") at Hofgartenstrasse No. 5, Bonn, with the date 1886 printed on the imprint. The scene is unmistakably theatrical in intent, drawing on the famous opening monologue of Goethe's Faust, Part One, in which Faust laments having studied philosophy, law, medicine, and theology to no avail. A long scroll on the table before the group bears a line from that passage, and a second inscription held by the seated figure at right reads "gegen Durchfall!" ("against failing!"), giving the scene its satirical academic punch.

All six men wear tall silk top hats and dark frock coats, arranged around a carved barley-twist-leg table. On the table rests a human skull, a collection of small objects, and the inscribed scroll. A white rooster stands on the floor at center, eggs scattered around it, and a leather satchel sits at the feet of the rightmost figure, who raises a small book aloft with one hand and holds a glass in the other. The seated bearded man at left is being attended to with scissors, as if mid-shave or mid-examination, while a painted bust portrait hangs on the studio backdrop wall above the group.

The composition is a classic German student Kneipfoto, a genre of humorous staged group portraits produced for fraternity or academic social circles, here given pointed literary wit through its direct quotation of Goethe. Emil Koch was operating at Hofgartenstrasse No. 5 in Bonn during the mid-1880s, a prosperous period for university-town studio photographers catering to the University of Bonn's student population.

The front imprint reads "Emil Koch / Hofphotograph / 1886 / Hofgartenstrasse No. 5 / Bonn." The reverse is blank.