Part woman, part bird, this robust Archaic Greek sculpture represents a siren, a mythical creature famous in antiquity for its song that lured sailors off course to their deaths. In Greek mythology sirens, like harpies, embodied a potent aspect of feminine power. The wily hero Odysseus encountered them near their island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. By being lashed to the mast of his ship, Odysseus was able to hear the sirens' song without danger, while his crew plugged their ears so as not to be enchanted.

The geographer Strabo and other ancient writers tell us that sanctuaries dedicated to the sirens existed in parts of southern Italy and elsewhere. This sculpture may well have been a votive offering at such a sanctuary. Modeled by hand with applied decoration, it is much rarer than the mold-made, siren-shaped terracotta vessels that were popular throughout the Greek world during the Archaic period. It may also have been part of a sculptural group or have served as a crowning architectural element, possibly for a funerary monument, another context in which sirens frequently appear in Greek art.