A frontal ink portrait of a child — the youngest face in the entire sketchbook sequence, perhaps the youngest in the whole collection. The face is round and still-forming: the features small and close together in the wide expanse of the face, the eyes described with small but carefully placed marks, the nose a simple curve, the lips briefly indicated. The proportions are unmistakably those of a child — the large head relative to the neck and shoulders, the features' small scale within the broad face.
The ink is applied with unusual gentleness for this series — the outer contour of the head clean and soft, the interior marks placed with more restraint than the adult portraits. The short hair above the face is described with a few minimal strokes. The collar below the face and the garment's brief shoulder line are given quickly, the child wearing a plain shirt.
Children are rare in Sidney's portrait work across the whole collection — the figure drawings are all adult models, the painted portraits are adults, the ink sketchbooks have drawn dozens of adult faces. This child portrait is an exception that carries its own weight precisely because of its rarity. Someone's child, or a child Sidney encountered, drawn with the same attentiveness he brought to every face.
The child's expression is neutral but open — not yet the defended expressions of most adult sitters, not yet the habit of face that the adult portraits reveal. The face is still becoming what it will be, and Sidney caught that incompleteness with care.