A male portrait in ink, the face in three-quarter view tilted downward — the eyes heavy and looking sharply down, the brow furrowed, the expression one of concentration or gravity. The portrait's distinguishing physical detail is visible at the lower edge of the chin: two or three ink drips, clearly from the pen or brush, trailing down from the jaw and pooling in small drops. These drips are the marks of the drawing's making — the ink running in real time, the tool held too long over the paper.
The face is built with the ink's most intense hatching in this batch — the shadow zones around the eyes and nose and chin dark and dense, the face having a tonal depth that approaches the expressionistic rendering of Work 1390 next to it. The downward gaze is heavy-lidded, the eyes barely open, the whole face pulled toward the floor.
The ink drips at the chin are not erasable, not a mistake that could be concealed — they are part of the finished drawing, either accepted as an accident or unnoticed until after. They give the portrait an accidental authenticity: the mark of the tool, the evidence of time, the drawing caught in the act of being made.
This is one of the rare works in the collection where the process is visible as a physical event on the surface — where the drawing documents not just the subject but the moment of its own creation. The drips at the chin are the drawing's hidden signature.