The picture belongs to the group of portraits of jesters and "men of pleasure" of the court painted by Velázquez to decorate secondary rooms and passageways in the royal palaces.

In these less important settings, the painter was able to test new expressive resources with greater freedom than in the official portraits of the royal family, with their need to portray the individuals in the best light.

[2] In 1701 it was at the Buen Retiro Palace, where in the inventory it was described as "portrait of Vn Bufón Con golilla called Pablillo, the one from Valladolid by Velázquez", valued with its black frame at 25 doubloons.

The silhouette is sharply outlined on a neutral background, with no other spatial reference to the point where the feet rest except by the shadow it casts, by even ignoring the faint line that in the portrait of the infant Don Carlos established the separation between the floor and the wall.

[4] The technical study signed by Carmen Garrido, however, although it admits distortions on the surface due to varnishes and accumulated dirt, indicates that brown is the original background colour, obtained from black iron oxides, white lead and calcite with some impurities, vermilion and a large amount of binder.