The present pair of vases are reductions of the celebrated krater, currently in the Louvre, Paris. The frieze depicts ecstatic bacchantes escorting a staggering Silenus. The original was discovered with the Medici krater and other marbles in the wreck of a ship which had been bound for Athens shortly after the time of Sulla. Since the 19th century it has been considered to be a neo-Attic sculpture from an Athenian workshop.