The krater was discovered buried, as a funerary urn for a Thessalian aristocrat whose name is engraved on the vase: Astiouneios, son of Anaxagoras, from Larissa.

[4] The top part of the krater is decorated with motifs both ornamental (gadroons, palm leaves, acanthus, garlands) and figurative: the top of the neck presents a frieze of animals and most of all, four statuettes (two maenads, Dionysus and a sleeping satyr) are casually seated on the shoulders of the vase, in a pose foreshadowing that of the Barberini Faun.

On the belly, the frieze in low relief, 32.6 cm tall, is devoted to the divinities Ariadne and Dionysus, surrounded by revelling satyrs and maenads of the Bacchic thiasus, or ecstatic retinue.

There is also a warrior wearing only one sandal, whose identity is disputed: Pentheus, Lycurgus of Thrace, or perhaps the "one-sandalled" Jason of Argonaut fame.

"[5] If transcribed in Attic, the inscription could read: Aστίων Aναξαγόρου ἐκ Λαρίσης (Astíōn Anaxagórou ek Larísēs).