A seated figure in blue ink — drawn with a ballpoint or fine pen rather than a dip pen — in left profile, the body presenting an unmistakable pregnancy: the belly's pronounced forward dome, the posture of a body accommodating new weight, the specific curve from breast to abdomen that belongs only to this condition. The model sits with the left knee raised, the right leg extending downward, the face in left profile looking forward with an expression of quiet attention. The long hair falls from the crown along the right side of the face and past the shoulder. The feet below are given brief attention, the characteristic toe marks just visible at the lower edge.
The blue ink here is a ballpoint rather than the flowing dip-pen line of the ink portraits (1443, 1444): the marks are slightly more uniform in width, the line slightly more mechanical, the corrections more visible (a second pass at the belly's lower curve, a redrawn foot). But the immediacy and commitment of ink — its unalterability — are fully present, and the blue line against the white paper gives the seated pregnant figure a cool, precise quality unlike the sanguine's warmth or the chalk's softness.
The pregnancy is the defining subject of this drawing and the next two works in sequence (1453, 1461) — three drawings of the same model in different media and poses, constituting the most sustained observation of a single subject in the new portfolio. The belly's forward curve is described with the same single-contour economy as the rest of the body, but the curve itself is specific and unmistakable: rounder than any abdomen in the hundreds of preceding figure drawings, the body in the particular shape that belongs to this temporary and profound condition.
The raised knee, the profile face, the hanging hair, the seated posture: these are all elements that appear elsewhere in the portfolio. What makes this drawing unique is the belly between the knee and the breast — the single body zone that recontextualizes everything else and makes this figure not a figure study but a portrait of a particular moment in a particular life. The blue ink, with its slight mechanical quality, gives the observation an almost clinical precision that suits the subject.