A clothed bust-length portrait in strict left-facing profile — one of the rarest configurations in the figure drawing sequence. The model sits turned away, the full profile exposed: forehead, brow line, nose, the strong jaw, the lips drawn together. The expression is not neutral — there is something set in the jaw, a habitual firmness, a face accustomed to its own privacy. Sidney found here a psychological complexity that the nude figure studies rarely pursue.
The hair is the drawing's most celebrated zone. Voluminous, wavy, partially pinned, it rises above the head in a mass of looping marks that describe its texture and movement without losing its overall shape. Each section of the wave is observed separately, the whole mass building into a credible architectural form above the face.
The garment below the face is broadly suggested — a collared open neckline, the shoulders indicated, the chest and arm loosely rendered. The body is not the subject here; the subject is the face, turned away, giving nothing.
In a life class context, clothed figures are unusual — a model who arrived dressed, or a session that began before undressing. Whatever the circumstance, the result is one of the most psychologically loaded images in the figure sequence. The strict profile convention removes the confrontation of a frontal gaze while the specificity of the features insists on a particular, lived face.