The acrobat Marie Cochon appears in other drawings by the artist, also dated around 1904, still dressed in her performance costume: "La Parade"; "Les Artistes du cirque" and "Dans les coulisses".

In 1904, the young Van Dongen was settled in Montmartre. In addition to his contributions to the satirical press (L'Assiette au beurre, Le Rire, Froufrou, etc.), the artist worked in various small jobs, including for the traveling circus "Chez Marseille". Fairground life - in particular the rituals of "exhibition" and "parades" of the actors - inspired a series of ten watercolors, Les Saltimbanques, which he presented in November of the same year at Ambroise Vollard, rue Lafitte, on the occasion of his first private exhibition.
They were very lively and attracted the attention of the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who praised them in these terms in the columns of Gil Blas: "A series of drawings entitled Les Saltimbanques where, La Parade, Marie Cochon, and finally Saucisse et Pépino are to be noted for the intense life that overflows there and the caricatural realism of the execution. In 1906, Félix Fénéon, enthusiastic prefacer of the exhibition catalog, bought three of these watercolors - Marie Cochon, La Parade, Saucisse et Pépino - for the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, which presented them in turn two years later.
The year 1904 is a crucial date in Van Dongen's career. His exhibition at Vollard's, his remarkable submissions to the Salon des Indépendants and then to the Salon d'Automne, marked his official entry into Parisian artistic life. At just 27 years old, supported by Paul Signac, Maximilien Luce and Félix Fénéon, the painter joined the ranks of the avant-garde. The beginning of Van Dongen's Montmartre period was one of passionate plastic research, already paving the way for Fauvism.
One only has to read Charles Saulnier's review of the Vollard exhibition in the Revue universelle of 1905 to be convinced of the artist's precocity. The critic rightly points out his chromatic audacity, which does not suffer any half-tone, his taste for "violent contrasts, bright colors, evocative of noisy fanfares, picturesque parades offered by fairground shows". And he adds: "[T]he parades drawn with Indian ink and violently colored with watercolors are curious works that must hold the attention of the amateur.
In contact with the circus world and its artifices, Van Dongen develops works of great expressive force. The watercolor of Marie Cochon, brushed with an alert hand, is a fine example of the formal inventions of the painter, who takes advantage of the crudity of the electric lighting to free himself from the half-tones. Accentuation of the shadows, frankness of the contrasts and colors, vigorous brushstrokes supporting the contours to the detriment of the modeling, and underlining the sensual curves of the acrobat, make of this drawing of youth a pre-fauve work.