A woman sits upright on the right of a plain olive-green ground, her face mostly hidden beneath an exaggerated, wide, flat-brimmed black hat that makes a bold graphic silhouette. She wears a long, high-collared rust-brown dress with a small white collar, and a single dark braid runs down her back. A large black panther lies along the lower half of the picture, its chin on her lap and her hand resting on it, golden eyes half-open, its long tail curling in an S.

The background is empty of props or scenery, leaving the left side as calm negative space. Soft, dim, even light and warm, lifted darks give an aged-painting finish. Short directional palette-knife and bristle strokes cover the whole surface, with the fur and dress built from small chiseled, scale-like marks in a modern folk, naive-surrealist manner.