[1] The painting is one of the best-preserved murals of Tarquinia,[2] and is known for "its lively coloring, and its animated depictions rich with gestures,"[3] and is influenced by the Greek-Attic art of the first quarter of the fifth century BC.

[4] The banqueters are "elegantly dressed" male-female couples attended by two nude boys carrying serving implements.

[6] The scene is usually taken to represent the deceased's funerary banquet, or a family meal that would be held on the anniversary of his death.

In the 1920s, D. H. Lawrence described the painting in his travel essays Sketches of Etruscan Places: The walls of this little tomb are a dance of real delight.

The room seems inhabited still by Etruscans of the sixth century before Christ,[11] a vivid, life-accepting people, who must have lived with real fullness.