The decoration on the outside of the vase is limited to common geometric motifs (cross-hatched triangles and checkerboard). On the inside, however, animal figures fill most of the surface: depicted in the tondo is a roaring lion, whose bared teeth, lolling tongue and large eyes compound its ferocious aspect; encircling the lion is a frieze of six antlered deer (or horned caprines), couchant and turning their heads backwards. Lions appear very rarely in Attic vase-painting prior to the Late Geometric II period (735-700 BC). Moreover, the motif of the couchant deer turning the head backwards is identified only in representations of the same period. The lion’s spiraling tail imitates Assyrian models, while the concentric zones of animals inside the vase brings to mind Phoenician metal bowls of the 9th and 8th c. BC, which may have been taken as models. The vase is attributed to an Attic workshop and specifically to the final phase of the workshop conventionally known as that of the Hirschfeld Painter.