This painting shows the qualities of the artist as a portraitist, with his choices of purism and controlled and measured exhibition of feeling. The work won a coloring contest in 1835. The two boys simultaneously show the sentimental side of everyday life, the poetics of warmheartedness, the world of childhood -in this case related with the act of drawing and, as such, with a moment of fun- and are presented through a naturalist, non-idealized exhibition of their faces.