The bold contours and simplified modelling of Child Holding a Dove, painted during this decisively important period, reflect the influence of artists such as Gauguin and Cezanne, whose works were still regarded with suspicion by the academic establishment; the touch of sentiment in the painting is Picasso's own.

By this time he had rebelled against the social and artistic conformism represented by his father. Yet Don Jose's slightly absurd partiality for doves and pigeons often reappears in his son's works, right down to the celebrated propaganda dove for the peace movement and the 1957 Pigeons series.