[1][2] It is one of his earliest signed engravings[3] and shows four exuberant nude women gathered conspiratorially in a circle in a confined interior setting, perhaps a bathhouse,[4] which appears to have entrances from either side.

[8] The alternative view is that the women represent Greek or Roman goddesses, perhaps Hecate, patroness of evil magic, poisonous plants, and ghosts, or her earthly counterpart Diana.

The small devil in the left hand recess, who is intended to represent evil, as mammalian anatomy including hind legs, and holds a vaguely described object in his claw that appears to consist of sticks and a piece of string,[10] perhaps comprising a contemporary device for hunting birds and fowl.

Compared to his nudes in the near contemporary Small Fortune which shows a female satyr nursing her infant, or The Penance of St John Chrysostom, the current work seems more reliant on Renaissance prototypes, although they are, according to art historian Charles Ilsley Minott "taller, sturdier, and more graceful.

[17] Possible interpretations range from the four seasons and the four elements, to Aphrodite (represented here by the woman to the right wearing a myrtle wreath)[1] and the Graces, the Three Fates, or more simply four witches or four girls in a brothel.

[18] The art historian Marcel Briton suggests that the work may not have any specific meaning and is simply a portrait of four nudes, "the whim of a young artist annoyed by the puritanical conventionality of his fellow-citizens".

[9] Alternatively, the woman from the second right wearing a wreath may represent Discordia, the Roman goddess of strife and discord, who threw an apple amongst Juno, Minerva and Venus, igniting the Trojan War.

Nicoletto da Modena (1490-1569) produced a version based on the Judgement of Paris interpretation, changing the inscription on the globe to "Detur Pulchrior" (To the fairest), and omitted the devil and bones.