A seated back view in green chalk — the figure seated on the floor or a low surface, the back presented as a broad rounded form, the large loosely coiled bun at the crown dominating the upper composition. The bun here is the largest and most elaborately drawn in the green chalk series: a complex of overlapping loops and curves building the gathered hair mass with a quality of volume and weight unusual in the otherwise economical green chalk portrait mark-making. The back below the bun is drawn with the characteristic single-contour approach, the outer edge of the shoulders and the lower back defining the body's lateral extent. A shadow mark beneath the seated figure suggests the surface the body rests on.
The seated posture compresses the figure vertically: where the standing figures fill the 12.5 by 19 sheet from crown to toe, the seated figure occupies primarily the upper two thirds, the lower portion of the sheet given to the implied floor below. This gives the composition an unusual amount of white space at the bottom, the seated body floating above the sheet's lower zone with only the shadow marks below to ground it. The visual weight collects at the bun — the most marks, the most complex form — and descends through the back to the implied seat.
The large bun as the composition's primary visual event connects this work to the portrait impulse running through the portfolio: like Work 1451's swept hair architecture and Work 1429's wild mane, the hair here carries more visual weight than the face or the body's anatomy. In this seated back view the bun is all: the face is invisible, the body is contour, but the gathered hair mass at the crown is an architectural object given its own life. It is the drawing's subject as much as the figure is.