A bust-length ink portrait of a woman facing slightly right, her eyes heavy-lidded and nearly closed — not sleeping but carrying the particular weight of someone deeply tired or inward. The hair falls on both sides of the face, loose and shoulder-length, described with the ink's characteristic broad strokes. The face is broad, the chin full, the expression carrying a quality of endurance.
The ink line throughout is the same confident, somewhat blunt instrument as the companion portraits in this sketchbook group — quick marks that establish form rather than refine it. The shirt below the face is described with a collar and button placket, two buttons indicated, the garment suggesting a specific person in a specific moment.
The heavy eyelids are the portrait's defining feature — the lashes described with short hatching strokes, the eyes themselves barely open. In a collection where open, watchful eyes are the norm in portrait work, this half-closed gaze carries unusual weight. The face is present but not engaged, somewhere between here and elsewhere.
Within the ink sketchbook sequence — 1343 through 1370 — this portrait marks the continuation of Sidney's sustained engagement with the close-up head, drawing face after face with the same direct, unsparing attention he brought to the life drawings.