A winged, nearly nude woman with ivory-white skin, partially wrapped in a crimson-red cloak, delicately holds up the reins of a gray horse as it rears toward her in this vertical painting. They stand on a roughly oval-shaped disk of gray rock carpeted with mustard-yellow growth. Stubby brown branches jut out from its sides. To our right, the woman’s body faces us as she looks toward the horse, to our left. The woman’s honey-brown hair is braided and wound into coils over her temples. The rest is pulled back, and tendrils frame her face and fall over her shoulders. A strand of pearls drapes along her hairline between the braids. Her hazel-brown eyes and slightly parted pale lips are set in a round face. Tall wings edged in earth brown and filled with a blend of ivory, caramel brown, and mustard yellow reach up along either side of her head. Her long cloak is knotted on at her right shoulder, on our left, and drapes across her clavicle, over her other shoulder, and down her back. One corner wraps across her hips and mid-section, and drapes over her outstretched left arm, on our right, revealing bare legs. A cream-white and caramel-brown striped sash under the cloak is tied over one shoulder and knotted under her bare breasts. She holds a short, dark brown tree branch covered with spiky leaves in her left hand, our right. The other hand is raised to daintily hold one end of the thin gold string wound around the horse’s neck. The horse balances on its hind legs with its front hooves dangling in mid-air. His body is angled toward the woman, but his head turns back as he faces us with his mouth hanging open. The horse's head and tail seem too small for its large body. Along the bottom edge of the composition, in front of the spit of land, a mermaid with long blond hair and two charcoal-gray tails swims with arms extended in front of her. The water is pale beige closest to us and transitions to a light blue as it recedes into the distance, where it blends into the milky white sky. Birds fly over ghostly, powder-blue headlands studded with caramel-brown trees in the distance to our left. A boat sails in the water in the distance to our right.