A seated back-view figure in red chalk — the body rounded and self-enclosed, the arms drawn in on both sides, the whole posture gathering inward. The head is bowed or lowered, visible only as a shape above the rounded upper back. Both arms are present: the left extending down and slightly out, the hand with its individual fingers visible at the lower left; the right arm folded across and inward, the hand not visible, the arm disappearing behind the body.
The back itself is the composition's primary subject — broad, smoothly contoured, the spine barely suggested as a faint vertical impression in the center. The shoulder blades are present but not prominent. The sanguine marks follow the form's surface, building the back as a single rounded mass rather than an articulated structure.
The lower body is where the composition is most compelling: the figure is seated on the floor or on a low surface, the buttocks and folded legs creating a wide, grounded base — the lower body spreading outward while the upper body turns inward. This countermotion, the body simultaneously opening at the base and closing at the top, gives the figure its particular quality.
The hand at the lower left is the most described element — the fingers individually indicated, the wrist's angle. In a drawing that is otherwise about the back as closed surface, this one exposed hand is the only point of external contact with the world.