A left-facing profile portrait in red chalk — the transition back to sanguine within the sketchbook-format paper after the extended run of black and blue ink portraits. The face is in strict profile: the forehead clean, the nose slightly upturned, the lips closed and forward, the chin gently rounded. The eye in profile is described with a single mark, the brow above it a light stroke.
The frilled or ruffled collar at the neck is the drawing's most specific detail — a gathered or pleated fabric collar, the folds described with several small arcing marks, the collar's edge irregular and soft. This garment detail places the sitter: a woman in a decorative blouse, not a life class subject but someone met and drawn. The ruffled collar is the only such garment element in the entire sketchbook run.
The hair above is swept cleanly back and up, the style simple and the chalk marks accordingly brief. The aged warm paper gives the sanguine marks their characteristic intimacy — the chalk sitting softly in the grain, the line less sharp than on fresh white paper.
This portrait marks the transition point between the ink sketchbooks and the chalk figure drawings that follow. The sanguine medium returns, but on the smaller sketchbook-format paper rather than the large life-drawing sheets. The frilled collar is a small gift of specificity that the life class nudes cannot offer — a clothed person, a detail of ordinary life, the ruffles of someone's actual shirt.