A group of men gather at a round table in a tavern; twelve are still visible in the truncated panel. They wear black doublets with white ruffled collars. All have tall drinking vessels depicted in yellow, like the plates on the table. They also sit on yellow stools. The viewer’s attention is drawn to the standing guild master and figure beside him, who removes his hat to pay his respects. Although the panel has been trimmed, we can still observe servers at the sides bringing meat and drink. A man playing the fife and another playing the drum stand in the right foreground. The men at table are engaged in animated conversation; they turn to each other, raise their cups, or salute the musicians. The room is glazed with bulls' eye windows and the wooden ceiling is carved with sculpted cross-beams that are painted green. Below the scene, is a row of inscriptions and below that coats of arms bringing additional color to the panel.

The panel has been cut off on both sides and the architectural frame around the main scene is missing. There has been rearrangement and replacement of the arms which do not correspond to the number of inscriptions or guild members present. A second row of arms, to correspond with the twelve guild members depicted (which would have appeared above the scene or below the first row), is missing. The face of the central guildmaster standing in the back row has been intentionally scratched and is retouched.

As in other civic society panels of this period, the members are recognized primarily by their inscribed names and arms, which usually surround the main scene and correspond in number to the figures assembled. Attempts at portraiture are rare, even when the arms seem to be individually placed. For example, see the panel of 1554 of a tailor's guild in Basel in which the arms follow the curvature of the table above the head of each seated figure (Basel, Historisches Museum, 1870.1284; BS_35; Ganz, 1966, p. 19, pl. 2). The original disposition of the Los Angeles panel, which has been cut down on all sides, can be tentatively reconstructed by comparison. In both comparanda, a woman coming in from the right carries a platter with a roasted fowl. On the left, a male servant pours drink for one of the men, who twists in his chair to extend his goblet. The compositional frame around the figurative event consists of architectural motifs supporting a top miniature episode, which demonstrates the actual tasks of a particular guild or presents an allegory of its work ethic. This format, with the arms and their inscriptions set below, retained its popularity in the early seventeenth century and was the presumed original format of this panel.

The panel can also be compared with the depiction of the Municipality of Stammheim in 1635 by the Zurich painter Hans Jakob Nüscheler II (Gemeinde Stammheim; Boesch, 1955, p. 97, fig. 40) and Hieronymus Vischer's famous Banquet of the Basel Ropemakers Guild, 1615 (Basel, Historisches Museum 1901.42; BS_226; Dürst, 1971, p. 127, no. 59; Ganz, 1966, p. 110, pl. 13). Fourteen individuals sit at the table with their shields and names arranged on the lowest tier. In all these panels, the banquet hall is characterized by rows of bulls' eye windows which are regularly interrupted at the top by a small rectangular area in which colorful gift panels would have been inserted.

In the Los Angeles panel, bread rolls and tall goblets fill the surface of the table which characteristically dominates the room, allowing just enough space for the musicians, playing flute and drum, to stand in their customary place in the right foreground. Above all, the most distinguishing trait of these scenes is the variety of animated gestures and mannerisms enacted by the dining gentlemen. It is not possible to be certain when the portrait of the guild master was defaced, but it is tempting to believe that the perpetrator actually acted with animus towards the individual or his descendants. It is too localized an action to suggest random vandalism. Keeping with the traditional banquet format, which places the musicians to one side, servants and hosts are shown serving food and drink from opposite corners of the room. Their presence is included in such a way that does not interrupt, but rather accentuates the group's wellbeing and conviviality. There is not enough evidence to conclusively identify the type of guild represented, even though pretzels and brewer's implements on the remaining arms imply that it is likely a millers' or brewers' guild.

Cited in:
Hayward, 1989, p. 70.
Raguin, 2024, vol. 1, pp. 203–206.