A large pencil portrait of powerful presence — a figure seen nearly frontally, the eyes looking directly out at the viewer with an expression of steady, unsentimental attention. This face does not invite or repel; it simply looks. The hair rises voluminously above the face, described with many energetic loop marks that give the upswept mass its texture and height.
The face is described with sustained tonal attention: the shadow under the brow, building the eye socket's depth; the nose modeled from both sides; the lips with their closed, even expression. The face has genuine three-dimensionality — this is Sidney at his most sustained portrait attention.
Below the face, a buttoned blouse is described with specific button marks down the center front — three buttons visible, the collar open at the neck. The clothing grounds the portrait in everyday life rather than the abstract studio.
This direct, unflinching gaze connects to the most psychologically present portraits in the collection — the Bald Man (1044), Nellie (1205), the Gaze portrait (918) — but this face has a quality of the ordinary rather than the iconic: someone Sidney knew, drawn exactly as they were.