Walt Whitman, the American poet whose later years were extensively documented by photographers including Frederick Gutekunst, Thomas Eakins, and others working in and around Camden, New Jersey, is depicted in this three-quarter length seated portrait on a large-format cabinet card with no studio imprint visible. The image corresponds closely in pose, costume, and physical appearance to Whitman's documented portraits of the mid to late 1880s, when he was resident at his Mickle Street home in Camden following the stroke that had partially disabled him.

Whitman sits with a walking cane held in both hands across his lap, wearing a wide-brimmed soft felt hat, a loosely fitted dark suit jacket with an open collar and no necktie, his full white beard flowing broadly across his chest and long white hair visible at the temples. His posture is relaxed and his expression carries a slight smile, the gaze direct and at ease. The plain vignetted background and large board mount are consistent with cabinet card production of the 1880s.

Whitman actively participated in the production and distribution of his own photographic portraits throughout his career, famously selecting images for use as frontispieces to successive editions of Leaves of Grass and selling photographs to admirers and correspondents. He considered Frederick Gutekunst among the finest photographers of his day and sat for his last studio portraits there in August 1889, describing one result as "a first-rater, one of the best, anyhow."