This statuette was made as a funerary offering, possibly for a grave site or a sanctuary. The woman's raised arms strike at her head in a ritualized gesture of lamentation, and her loose hair is cut short as a sign of mourning. Her long-sleeved garment and her hair are glazed solid black; the artist also used black for the detail of her eyes and eyebrows, emphasizing her expression by adding white for the whites of her eyes.

Boiotia, where this figure was made, was sometimes viewed by its Athenian neighbors to the south as rustic and backward; it was a place where very ancient traditions persisted. This statuette, its body rendered as a slab and its arms as nonanatomical loops, is reminiscent of Bronze Age idols; only the face displays the growing naturalism of this period. To modern eyes, the simple image has a direct and poignant appeal.

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