The drawing is in some respects simply a continuation of Castiglione’s large oil drawings of the 1640s, but it displays little of the rigorous structure seen in the best of those sheets. His calligraphic brushwork here seems to get the better of his spatial control: the composition is an accretion of rapidly outlined motifs, with modelling and shadows added sporadically to the jumble of the laden ass and the barely legible heap of objects at lower left.