A cabinet card souvenir reproduction of Thomas Nast's elaborate composite caricature titled Old Mother Goose's Melodies, distributed by G.W. Collins of Urbana, Ohio, presents the full illustration on a distinctive pink-bordered horizontal-format mount, signed Th. Nast in the lower right corner and captioned Old Mother Goose's Melodies in small type along the lower edge. The central composition places a bonneted Mother Goose figure seated at a desk, an open illustrated book before her, surrounded by a dense foreground group of children and adult figures whose heads bear the recognizable physiognomies of caricatured public figures. A bearded man leans in from behind the central figure, and groups of children in period dress flank the scene at left and right. The surrounding field of the illustration is packed with dozens of additional caricature vignettes — figures on rocking horses, heads on platters, bodies in nursery-rhyme scenarios — extending to every edge of the composition.

The density of caricatured likenesses and the nursery-rhyme satirical framework identify this as one of Nast's elaborate political composite works, in which recognizable public figures are embedded within a familiar cultural narrative for comic and critical effect. The pink borders of the mount are a distinctive presentation feature of this issue.

Thomas Nast (1840–1902) was the most influential American political cartoonist of the nineteenth century, whose work for Harper's Weekly from 1862 onward shaped public opinion on Reconstruction, political corruption, and immigration. He is credited with creating the visual archetypes of the Republican elephant, the Democratic donkey, and the modern American Santa Claus, and his caricatures of the Tweed Ring were instrumental in bringing down that organization. Old Mother Goose's Melodies was among his multi-figure composite satires lampooning the leading figures of American public life.

The reverse bears the G.W. Collins imprint at Urbana, Ohio, a penciled notation reading 7-16-45, and dealer code 10/7/10 / COABH2.