Dora Vallier has recorded only 14 other surviving drawings by Rousseau. The artist is known to have exhibited drawings at four Salons des Indépendants between 1886 and 1910; Mme Vallier feels it is likely that Famille Brunet is one of them and that it may have been shown before 1891. This drawing is the only one which carries the calligraphic signature seen on the paintings. The subject is similar to that depicted two decades later in La carriole du père Juniet, 1908 (Vallier, no. 212; coll. Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris), and represents a scene which would have been familiar to the artist, who grew up and worked in a petit-bourgeois environment.

A photo-certificate from Dora Vallier dated Paris, March 24, 1994 accompanies this drawing.