The small sketch executed in oil and pastel on paper has faint finely drawn figures visible on the right side of the composition. Awash in shades of golden-yellow that cover the paper almost entirely, a series of marks, some in color, appear along the right edge of the sheet. The title suggests a connection of the motif to a fairytale by the Brothers Grimm, The devil with the three golden hairs, in which a miller's son with an enchanted golden skin must outsmarts the devil and a king to marry a princess. The work may refer to the beginning when, as an infant, the boy is abandoned.