Two cats, their fur standing up and their backs arched, spit and face off on top of a brick wall.

This is one of the cartoons for the Prince and Princess of Asturias' dining room in El Pardo.

As its narrow horizontal format shows, it was designed to hang over a door, a position favored by the perspective the painter gave it. Goya offers a perfect analysis of the cats' postures, which he represents with great naturalism, thanks to the study of this animal appearing in his Italian Notebook from 1771. He repeated this subject in his Caprichos in 1799.