A lekythos, decorated with a white-ground body, depicts a mourning scene. At the centre is a funerary stele adorned with ribbons, flanked on the left by a mourning woman with arms held out to the side, and on the right by a young man standing in a dark cloak. Above the figures is a meander pattern between two sets of parallel lines, with a tendril frieze between the body and the neck.

This lekythos, distinguished by its white finish and funerary themes, would have been used in funerary settings. The female figure appears nude as her diaphanous chiton has since faded over time to reveal the complete and elegant under-drawing. Her arms are spread wide because she was once holding a brown ribbon, also faded away. In contrast to her active posture and lightly clad drapery, the young man is shown in quiet and still contemplation of the funerary stele in front of him, heavily swathed in his red himation.

Attributed to the Carlsberg Painter, this style has been associated by Beazley with a group of painters known as the Bird Painters. See J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Vol. II, Second edition, Oxford, 1963, p. 1235 & 1236. For other Carlsberg Painter examples with similar ‘nude’ women holding ribbons, see BAPD nos. 216454 and 216455.