Italian Hand Colored Engraving by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein: Based on the Original Collection of Sir William Hamilton's Ancient Vases

A masked figure in a padded costume carries a towering basket, while a garlanded youth strolls beside him with a staff.

This hand colored engraving, based on the original collection of Sir William Hamilton's ancient vases, is after Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, from Naples, Italy, around 1791, in ink on paper. Vase painters in southern Italy often showed scenes from comic plays, with actors in grotesque masks and padded suits, and Dionysus, god of theater, frequently joins them. The youth carries a long staff topped with a cone and trails a shawl. Small floral sprigs float overhead, and two stepped pillars stand at either side. The image is 9.13 inches wide and 8.88 high.

The basket is enormous, and so, apparently, is the joke.