The painting depicts a young woman, her hands bound, walking on open ground, with four grim-looking Puritan men at her heels, escorting her to the gallows.

Known for his sensational paintings on anti-slavery subjects, Noble depicted the Salem witch trials as unjust persecution, with the maiden's beauty and "saintly-looking expression" presenting her as a martyr in the Christian tradition of hagiography.

[1] This romanticized portrayal notwithstanding, most Salem witch trial victims were older women.

[3] For his model for the condemned witch, Noble posed a young woman who worked as a librarian in the Cincinnati public library.

Family tradition maintains that she was a lineal descendant of a woman who was hanged as a witch in 17th-century Salem.