A frontal portrait in blue-purple ink — the ink here is clearly not the standard black of the ochre-paper portrait series but a deep blue-violet, applied with the same bold broad-nib or brush as the large ink portraits but in a color that reads as expressive rather than neutral. The face is frontal or near-frontal, the features described with the bold marks: the two eye zones built with overlapping dark strokes, the nose in brief indication, the mouth set. The hair around the face is described with agitated, overlapping marks that give it a wild quality. The face has a startled or intense emotional charge.
The blue-purple ink is the most unusual ink color in the portrait series — where blue ballpoint has appeared in the figure drawings (1452, 1476) and blue chalk in figure studies, this portrait uses a concentrated blue-violet that reads as deliberately chosen rather than incidentally available. The color gives the face a quality of heightened intensity: not the warm ochre resonance of the brown-ink portraits but something cooler and more electric.
The portrait's emotional intensity — the wide marks at the eyes, the agitated hair, the near-frontal gaze — combines with the unusual ink color to create a portrait that reads differently from all the surrounding works. This may be the most emotionally charged of the smaller ink portraits, the face almost vibrating with the combination of bold marks and vivid color.