The statue stood with the I. leg slightly forward of the r., both arms down the sides. The figure wears a chiton with delicate wavy folds, half-length sleeves with long seams, and a wide semi-circular border with two edges around the neck. The cloak, of heavier material, is draped from proper I. shoulder down to r. hip and up again. Three folds go under the r. arm but only two come out on the back. The cloak was pleated on the proper I. into vertical folds, four in front, five in back. Simple bracelets are seen on both wrists. Six long tresses of hair fall on arms and chest; a broad rectangle of hair descends below the shoulders in nine horizontal rows of "beads."

Initially the statue was interpreted as that of a draped man; other scholars have argued that it is a maiden. The costume is the same as that of the possibly Milesian statue from Cape Phoneas, Buschor, Altsamische Standbilder 46f., figs. 160-162), which is even chestier and fleshier than the Manisa torso. Buschor published other Samian cloaked youths of marble and terracotta, one of whom also has frontal tresses (ibid., 3, figs. 163-167); compare also the men's tresses in Richter, Kouroi, nos. 43, 51, 157, 175, versus the korai named below. In favor of the identification as a man is the cloak draped from the l. shoulder, a trait not well attested for korai; there is, however, a faint indication of breasts. The great length of tresses and hair on the back, virtually unparalleled among larger sculptures of men, supports the identification as a kore. The bracelets, too, while possibly worn by men in luxurious Lydia (as were earrings), are much more common on female statues. Perhaps one should then consider this statue a girl.

The stylistic descent is from the school of Croesan sculptors at Ephesus. Such early traits as the strong, almost straight, rounded arm and simple folds are as on the fragment in Pryce (Catalogue Sculpture BM, 63, no. B 139, fig. 70) and the strong, flat carving of the cloak recurs in a kore from Klazomenai (Richter, Korai, no. 163), a product of the same school, ca. 540-530 B.C. These simple, nearly metallic forms are combined and contrasted with the delicate rendering of chiton in fine, small wavy lines. In a similar manneristic effect, the simple, beaded hair on the back is contrasted with six flowing tresses flung over chest and arms. The influence comes from a circle of "Ionizing?" sculptors who favored refined mannerism, and the nearest parallels are the two Acropolis korai with similar beaded hair and tresses over the arms, inventory numbers 682 and 675 respectively (ibid., nos. 116, 123, figs. 362, 397, ca. 525-520 B.C.). Since the fine chiton is first encountered in the (Cycladic?) caryatid of the Siphnian treasury before 530 B.C. (ibid., no. 104, fig. 320}, a date of 530-520 B.C. for the Manisa statue would account for its stylistic synthesis of early and "late" traits. Its sculptor succeeded in unifying the two aspects to create an image simpler, more geometric, more dignified than the Attic late archaic korai, an image in which luxury of hair and garment is toned down to a subdued component in the quiet radiance of aristocratic life.