[1] The portrait-format painting shows a statue of Justitia, or Lady Justice, on a base, which also forms the cornerstone of a stair railing.

Behind Lady Justice's lower legs there is a dark brown display box or bulletin board on the wall of the house, on which there is a written sheet of paper.

The base part of Justitia belongs to a staircase that seems to lead further up on the left and shows three steps in the foreground on the right that are parallel to the lower edge of the picture.

[2] The painting can be considered not without some ironical intent, since the sculpture shows some cracks in its foundation, while she also holds broken scales and wears a somewhat disarranged blindfold.

Spitzweg's Justitia came into the spotlight in 2007 when the Federal Ministry of Finance agreed to return it to the heirs of the former owner Jewish art collector Leo Bendel, who was forced to sell his collection after the Nazi rise to power, and had died at Buchenwald concentration camp, on March 30, 1940.

The painting was handed to the Federal President's Office on August 1, 1961, and was hung in the Villa Hammerschmidt, in Bonn, with no further inspections taking place.

In 2006, Blendel heirs shown to German President Horst Köhler the circumstances under which Leo Bendel was forced to sell it.