The first still life in the new portfolio sequence — and one of a small number of still lifes in the entire collection — a pencil drawing on a large 25 by 19 horizontal sheet depicting a tabletop arrangement: a large round ceramic jar or crock at center, its lid flat and rectangular; a pear or rounded organic form at the left on a draped cloth; a smaller object (perhaps a small fruit or vessel) at center-front; and a stemmed wine or brandy glass at the right. The signature at lower right — visible as brief initials or marks — makes this one of the rare signed works in the new portfolio, the Still Life classification in the CSV distinguishing it from the Nude Portrait works that surround it.
The pencil work is tonal and measured: the jar at center receives the most sustained observation, its round belly described with the outer contour and brief parallel marks at the left side indicating the shadow that gives the form volume. The glass at right is drawn with attention to the stem and the bowl's transparency — a few interior lines suggesting the glass wall's edge. The cloth beneath the objects drapes in soft folds, the pencil marks following the fabric's direction. The composition's arrangement — large form at center, smaller forms flanking — follows the classical still life tradition of the pyramidal or weighted-center arrangement.
The still life as a genre represents the most deliberate departure from the figure studies that constitute the overwhelming majority of the new portfolios. Where the figure drawings are about the body in motion or rest, the still life is about objects in their permanent stillness — things that do not move, do not breathe, do not age between one session and the next. The jar, the glass, the pear: quotidian objects given the same attentive observation Sidney applies to the human figure.
The signature makes this work doubly significant: Sidney chose to sign this one, among the very few signed works in the portfolios. The deliberateness of the still life genre, combined with the signature, suggests this was not an exercise or a warm-up but a considered work — Sidney applying to objects the same sustained attention he gave to people, and choosing to put his name to the result.