Liebich's Photographic Landscapes of Cleveland, Ohio documented one of the most distinctive advertising displays in nineteenth-century American photography in this albumen stereoview on an orange mount, showing photographer E.B. Nock's three-foot model steamboat floating in the rustic fountain basin at Public Square. The card is imprinted on the left edge "Liebich's Photographic Landscapes" and on the right edge "344 Ontario Street, Cor. Huron, Cleveland, O." The image was produced in versions by multiple Cleveland photographers including Liebich and James F. Ryder, making this a documented and collectible variant of a well-known subject.

The fountain basin occupies the foreground, its centerpiece a massive rustic tree-stump structure planted with large-leafed tropical foliage and fitted with a central jet spraying upward through the planting. Nock's model steamboat, numbered 148 and lettered for Ontario Street, floats in the near foreground of the basin, flying small flags at bow and stern. A seated miniature figure is visible on the upper deck. Behind the fountain, a busy commercial streetscape stretches into the middle distance, with storefronts including signs for trunks, bags and satchels, and Huckins Harness visible through the trees, with horse-drawn vehicles on the street.

According to Nock's great-granddaughter, the boat was in the pond at Public Square from about 1875 to 1900, and the man who raised the flag on Public Square would wind the boat mechanism so that a figure could move around the decks. Nock, who had worked as a cook on a riverboat in his youth, used the floating model as a street-level advertisement for his photography studio. The reverse bears a later ink inscription in a cursive hand and a penciled notation reading "9/29/18 DOABXXZ."