Of all the painters of New Objectivity Schad was the least political, but the one who applied the greatest pyschological emotion to his works. This portrait depicts, with extreme, almost obsessive fidelity, the image of a doctor of Jewish extraction, who is holding under his arm a clinical instrument as his only attribute. Behind, a menacing shadow recreates the profile of the subject's mistress, a professional model. It has been commented that this work, with its air of anxiety and unease, had a premonitory character, since the subject would commit suicide years later when he heard that the Gestapo were going to arrest him.
