The painting is one of his main works from the time when the painter was mostly concerned with contemporary issues and the social question as a result of the uninhibited technical advances made during the Industrial Revolution, particularly in Germany.

The publisher Wilhelm Spemann wrote about this work: "In this description of the iron rail forge from Königshütte in Upper Silesia, the highest degree of naturalistic observation is combined with virtuosity of presentation and a strong feeling for painterly effect.

Some of the workers at the furnace, barefoot in clogs and without protective gloves, transport the white-hot so-called slug with tongs and by tipping an iron hand truck into the profile rollers.

In the front lower right margin, exhausted workers are seated next to a press, having a lunch break, eating a meal brought in a basket by a young woman.

The German art historian Werner Busch wrote about this: “But the vanishing point itself is noted very specifically in the iron rolling mill, it is found in the conductor's head.