Colorless, yellow-green, white, and green lead glasses; lampworked; furnace-worked and cased. Domed, circular shape of colorless glass, enclosing a lifelike salamander or lizard, of lampworked overlay (or heat-sensitive) glass, cut to resemble scales, with the eyes and nose applied darker green dots; the mouth incised deeply enough to reveal the colorless core of the rod from which the body was lampworked; the lizard arranged in a counter-clockwise curl, with the tail curled back underneath the head; four applied legs, each ending in three toes; resting on a "ground" composed of a sandy tan with flocculent chips of green and opaque white glass mixed in; from underneath, the ground appears to rest on a background of chopped white glass; polished, slightly concave base.

Snakes and lizards were fashionable paperweight motifs. The Saint Louis factory produced mold-blown weights featuring lizards curled on top of rounded cushions. Large domes incorporating lifelike lizards or salamanders, made by the Pantin factory in the late 1870s, are among the most impressive paperweights ever created. Today, fewer than a dozen examples are known. One of them is this magnum (extra-large) weight enclosing a lampworked yellow-green coiled lizard. The artist who produced this weight overcame the risks involved in encasing such a delicate and detailed animal in molten crystal, and preserved the exquisite quality of the lampworking. The lizard’s body was wheel-cut to simulate scales, and the legs and other details were added. Salamanders, which were thought to be able to survive fire unharmed, were long revered by glassmakers.