NGC 1381 appears edge-on and features a thin disk with high surface brightness and a boxy bulge.

[2] Both the box-shaped bulge and the kinematics of the central area of the galaxy suggest that NGC 1381 has a bar.

[4] Julius Schmidt was then director of the National Observatory of Athens and he was inspecting the Cape catalogue nebulae with a 6 ft refractor.

The publication of their discovery was delayed by 10 years and was published in 1876 with the work Über einige im Cape-Catalog fehlende Nebel.

It is suggested that it was created by the tidal stripping of stars and globular clusters from the galaxies.