A large-format charcoal portrait of an older man — three-quarter view facing right, wearing glasses with large dark frames that dominate the face's middle zone. The hair is drawn back from a receding hairline with parallel strokes indicating the remaining hair's texture; the face below is that of a man in perhaps his fifties or sixties, the jaw set, the lips in a firm line, the overall impression of a person of substance and deliberateness. Below the face, the bulk of the figure extends: the shoulders broad, and at the lower right what appears to be a hat or soft object being held or manipulated by partially visible hands.
The charcoal on the warm ochre paper produces the same rich, velvety quality seen in Work 1469 [The Pregnant Figure, Charcoal] — the soft marks against the warm ground creating depth and warmth unavailable in the chalk or ink portrait works. The glasses are the portrait's most specifically described element: the thick dark frames carefully drawn with particular attention to where the frames rest on the nose, the temples extending to the ears, the lenses as emptied rectangles revealing the eyes behind. Glasses in portraiture are both an identifying mark and a compositional element, and here they are treated with full seriousness as both.
This is the second clothed male portrait in the batch (after Work 1477) and the first in charcoal — a medium that gives the male face a different quality from ink's sharpness. The charcoal's softness makes this face feel more vulnerable despite its set jaw and firm expression: the marks that build the shadow at the cheek and below the jawline are gentler than ink's irreversible strokes, the face less assertive and more observed. The large format — 18 by 24 — gives the portrait the scale of a serious studio study, not a sketch.