In his prints Goya often ridicules the popular interest in genealogy among Spanish aristocrats of the 1700s. In the scene, a donkey proudly displays a book containing a family tree and points to a coat of arms, asserting his pedigree in a long line of asses. Remarkably Goya created this image entirely from aquatint tone without any etched lines to define contours or add detail.

Within Los Caprichos Goya created a suite of six prints depicting humans as donkeys, a common satirical device at the time that critiqued foolishness or ignorance in society.