A frontal bust-length portrait in blue ballpoint ink — a man in a collared shirt looking directly out, the gaze steady and level. The blue ballpoint connects this immediately to Works 1362 and 1363, the two earlier blue-ink portraits from the sketchbook sequence. Where 1362 was a self-portrait and 1363 was a broad-faced frontal study, this portrait has a different quality — the face narrower, the gaze less confrontational, the expression one of quiet attention.
The collar and shirt are drawn with the ballpoint's characteristic fine, waxy line — the collar points, the button placket, a second button visible at the chest. The ear at the right is carefully drawn, the helix and inner structures correctly placed. The short hair above the face is described with a few parallel marks at the crown.
The blue ballpoint ink gives the portrait a cooler quality than the black ink portraits around it — not the warmth of sanguine chalk, not the urgency of black ink, but something steady and observational, the tool of everyday writing applied to the act of seeing. There is something in the ballpoint portraits — 1362, 1363, and now 1398 — that feels more private than the other ink work, as if the everyday tool brought a different kind of attention.
Among the three blue ballpoint portraits in the collection, this one is the most neutral in expression — not Sidney's own face, not the broad confrontational stare of 1363, but a face simply present, the gaze making no claim beyond its own steadiness.