The tableau shows Leeds, in her industrial character, fostering and encouraging the Arts and Sciences. The four female, robed, allegorical figures below and on either side of her (looking from left to right) are: Manufacture, with a loose roll of textile, a mallet, an anvil, a cog and pincers; Music and Poetry, with a lyre under one arm, and a trumpet or horn in the other; the Fine Arts with a palette in one hand; and Science, with a compass, a globe, perhaps a press of some kind, and a cone behind her. Two owls, emblematic of the city, sit on the twin pedestals near the middle, beside which are also a kneeling figure (probably Pan), on the left, and a bust of Athena, on the right.