The head to the right, the only one where the face is visible, is hard to identify. According to Camesasca (1987, p. 56), it could be that of the same model, the counsel for the defense, who is to be seen in another canvas of c.1855 (Stokvis Collection, Geneva), or the doctor in the two versions of Malade (Imaginaire) of the 1862-1863 period (Barnes Foundation, Merion; Museum of Art, Philadelphia), or even one of the figures of the Jugglers at Table of c.1865 (Simon Collection, Fullerton). According to J. Adhémar (1954), in a suggestion accepted by Camesasca, (1987, p. 176), the work may be identified as n. 45 or n. 47 in the exhibition of 98 works by Daumier held in 1878 by the Galerie Durand-Ruel of Paris. The exhibition, launched by Victor Hugo was an initiative of his friends to help the artist, who was losing his sight and in dire financial straits. Should it in fact be one of these two works, the small canvas in the Masp – Two Heads – would be dated approximately 1860, a date that would appear to be confirmed by the style. It was included in the project for the great Daumier exhibition in 1961 in the Tate Gallery, London, but was not actually shipped there, as shown in the Masp documents. Daumier is a full-blown painter in this work, with the most extreme methods of expression, unequaled in his generation. Sole heir to the late poetry of Goya, Daumier is able to mark the chaotic muddle of luminous mud with the seal of the tragic.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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