The fish represented were common to the diet of early Italian fisherman and continue to be popular on Italian menus today.

The werewolf at the center of the plate is puzzling for many reasons. The original wolf was depicted as hermaphroditic bearing both male and female characteristics. Undoubtedly it had its origins in early Etruscan myths or folk tales. It is a fiercesome image, and, unlike the benign She-wolf who suckled Romulous and Remus, not at all domesticated. It may have been painted at the plate's center to frighten away evil spirits.

Little authentic material survives to document the symbols, forms and meanings of Etruscan culture, which pre-dated the Roman Empire. Historically, Etruscan art has been regarded as the epitome of mysterious, complicated cultures of the past about which little can be known or deduced by modern methods. The "antique smile," the inscrutable smile similar to that which would later be depicted by Leonardo da Vinci on the face of the Mona Lisa, is Etruscan in origin, from a mysterious statue of a smiling man about which little is known-despite our curiosity, why the figure is smiling, who the figure depicts, can never be definitively penetrated.

Typically, Etruscan art is simple, powerful, and primitive.