The work is overtly sentimental about the disappeared lives of 'free' indians prior to the transformation of the New World into lands populated by Europeans.

The representation is an aggregation of popular perceptions of Native Americans in stereotypical pursuits, collaring bison, using bows and arrows in hunts, carrying infants in papooses framed by teepees in low relief.

In the intermediate section between the friezes on the base and the free standing figures are hierarchically scaled heads of bison that suggest hunting trophies.

The following text from an undated publication denoted as "Art Journal" illuminates the contemporaneous view of the art work and the artists' practice upon exhibiting the amphora that this is "the story of the chase, from the time that the red-man leaves his tent accoutred for hunting the buffalo, to the moment of his triumphal return bearing the tokens of his successful encounter".

[2] In an embodiment of the self-directed institutional critique the Metropolitan Museum of Art is undertaking, the web page describing the work is linked to an auxiliary page offering native American perspectives on objects in the museum's permanent collection and this review criticizes the Indian Vase as a 'misunderstanding' of native American culture.