An unidentified woman is depicted in a three-quarter length seated portrait on a cabinet card die-cut in the shape of an artist's palette, with a gilt outer edge and sage green inner border band, and the thumb hole of the palette form present at lower left. No studio imprint is visible on the front, and no reverse image was provided.

The woman leans against a heavily textured tree trunk prop, her right hand resting on a folded paper or envelope in her lap. She wears a dark button-front jacket with a small ruffled lace collar, a double chain draping from a brooch at the throat to a lower button, and small curl tendrils framing her face at the forehead and temples. Her gaze is direct and slightly amused in expression.

The artist's palette die-cut was among the more elaborate novelty mount formats produced for the cabinet card trade in the late 1880s and 1890s, distinguished from the palette-shaped image window variety by the physical shaping of the entire mount board rather than a cutout aperture over a rectangular card. The gilt and colored border treatment on this example indicates a premium production tier.