Although the decorative vocabulary of the present relief harks back to late antique precedents, it presumably originally formed part of an ecclesiastical context. The hedonistic significance of the vine in pagan times was susceptible of painless adaptation on account of the importance of the sacramental role of wine in the eucharist. The present relief has been compared to a relief in the Seattle Art Museum, which is thought to date from slightly later (New York, loc. cit.).