The present pair of vases are reductions of the renowned Classical vase currently in the Louvre, Paris. The friezes depict ecstatic Bacchantes escorting a staggering Silenus.

The original, discovered, with the Medici vase and other marbles in the wreck of a ship bound from Athens shortly after the time of Sulla, it has been considered since the late 19th century to be a neo-Attic sculpture from an Athenian workshop.