Sculptural vases were popular throughout the Greek world in the sixth century B.C. Often, as here, the shapes reflect a playfulness and humor that are recurrent features of Greek art. Made in the form of male genitals (aidoion), this vase was used to store oil, presumably of an erotic or medicinal nature. While aidoion vases were produced by a number of workshops, notably at Corinth, the finest examples, of which this is one, are thought to be of East Greek manufacture. There are less than a half dozen complete or nearly complete East Greek aidoion vases known today.

The light brown clay is meticulously decorated with black glaze as well as applied red and white paint. On the back, at the center of the pubes, is a mouth, below which is a tube decorated with a series of dots. The tube is flanked by two black dot rosettes that create the surprising image of a face, seemingly a bird. When not in use, the vessel was made to hang by a strap, which looped through two suspension holes. One imagines either side of the vase could have hung outward, depending upon the caprice of the owner.