kikib on "media description not showing up"

I'm trying to display the description of an image on my homepage. However, I'm working on my wp website by localhost. Here's my code

<div id="featured">
	 <div class="featuredtext">
        <h2><span>Featured Art Work</span></h2>
    </div>
<?php query_posts('cat=18&showposts=1'); ?>
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

    <div id="featuredpic" class="featured_item">
    	<?php //get article_image (custom field) ?>
        <?php $image = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'featured_image', true); ?>

        <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><img src="<?php echo $image; ?>" alt="Featured Artwork" /></a>
        <span class="caption featuredtitle">
          <div id="feattitle"><h2><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
          </div>
          <div id="featureddescription"><?php echo $description = $image->post_content; ?>
         </div>
       </span>
    </div>
     <hr class="border" />
 </div>

<div id="featureddescription"><?php echo $description = $image->post_content; ?></div>

This excerpt was taken out of the code box to emphasis where I'm trying to post the description of a media image. But it's not showing up on the page. What do I do?