Two glass discs are rotated in sequence using wooden levers. The man's leg is painted on one and a crab on the other. A third stationary disc holds the rest of the scene. Pulling down the first lever lowers the man's foot; pulling up on both levers raises the man's foot and reveals the crab attached to it. The discs were hand-painted using watercolor or oil paint.

H. J. Redding & Gyles was a London firm founded in 1896 that made and sold cameras, as well as magic lantern slides, optical toys and novelties (Tooley 2024a). Henry Joseph Redding was known at the time for having invented the Luzo camera, a small roll-film camera sometimes called a detective camera because of its small size. It was the first English roll-film camera, introduced in 1889—just one year after the Kodak roll-film camera (Tooley 2024b).