A three-quarter pencil portrait — the face tilted forward and down, the eyes looking below-left of the viewer, the expression inward or absorbed. The hair at the crown is described with the most gestural and spiky marks in the small-format pencil series: short, quick upward strokes in multiple directions suggesting an unruly or loosely styled hair, the individual marks not building a coherent structure but accumulating into the impression of volume and texture. A collared jacket or shirt is indicated below with brief marks at the collar and the chest pocket zone.
The downward-cast face combined with the energetic hair marks creates an interesting tension: the hair above is alive and active, the face below is retreated and inward. This same tension appeared in Work 1495 [The Downward Look] — open presentation with averted gaze — but here in pencil at a smaller format the effect is more immediate, the hair's energy more proximate to the face's withdrawal.
The pencil here is used at a medium pressure — lighter than the sustained cross-hatching of Work 1532 but heavier than the barely-there marks of Work 1525. The clothed context — jacket or shirt visible below — places this within the social portrait mode, the face observed in its everyday setting. Among the small-format pencil portraits in this batch (1539 and 1540 being the two pencil works in the 8.25 by 11 format), this one is the more tonal, the marks building some shadow around the eye socket and the jaw, the hair's energy the dominant visual element.