Shortly after arriving in Paris in 1906, Amadeo de Sousa Cardoso abandoned his initial project to study architecture. As an alternative, he decided to explore caricature, a genre he had already experimented with in Portugal in loose drawings of characters with exaggerated physiognomic features, scribbled on notebooks and books, or on postcards he sent to family and friends. The practice of caricature was an attractive field of formal experimentation for young artists who were seeking an aesthetic alternative to academic production, opening themselves up to new models and plastic trends.

In this drawing, linked to a style of humour based on satirical and ironic observations of mundane society, two figures are depicted in the same pose in another drawing from the modern collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, produced in Paris and dated January 1910, in which several caricatured personalities and a self-caricature of the artist himself appear. The two characters are not identified, but due to the relationship of this work with the drawing belonging to the CGF, it is very likely that they were inspired by real characters.

The composition is marked by the fine lines that give detail to the drawing, and the dark-coloured stains that surround the white spaces, accurately modelling the characters. There is a meticulous capture of the identifying features of the faces, despite the graphic stylisation and reduction of the drawing to its basic elements. Attention is given to the outlining of the left figure's profile, whose prominent belly is balanced, in compositional terms, by the curved back of his companion. The caricatural aspect of the scene is also emphasised by the interaction of the two individuals who lean on each other, and by the flexed positioning of their moving legs.