black figure decoration on a hydria, which is a water jug. The artist signed his name "A.D." which may have been his initials. The painting offers an interesting glimpse of everyday life in Athens. We can see women by a communal well, or fountain house. This would have been an important daily event since women were mostly restricted to their homes. The work shows five women under the shade of the columned porch, three of them are filling jars. A fourth balances her empty jug on her head as she waits, and the last is without a jug and seems to be waving.The composition is a balance of vertical, horizontal, rectangular, and rounded elements. The columns, the decorative vertical borders, and the streams of water flowing from the animal-head spigots echo the upright figures of the women.
A wide black band forms the ground line and there is an architrave above the columnade. The rounded forms of the women and the water vessls and the circular palmettes that frame the scene soften the geometrical framework.