Boy with a Dog can be regarded either as a study for one of Picasso's circus paintings of 1905 or as an original variation of the motif. The study was linked with the artist's work on a composition depicting a group of travelling circus artistes. Captured in the figure of the young boy is a sense of poignant melancholy, while the gentle grey-blue tones with strokes of rose-pink gouache on the brown cardboard ground make it possible to date the study to the beginning of Picasso's Rose Period.