A frontal ink portrait on warm cream paper — one of the most formally resolved of the ink portrait series. A young woman or androgynous person, nearly full-frontal, with straight hair parted to the side and falling smoothly on both sides of the face. The face is broad and open, the expression neutral and direct. The ink work here achieves an unusual quality of stillness — the marks are neither explosive nor tentative but simply placed, each one finding its exact location without revision.
The hair is handled with great simplicity: a single smooth curve on each side, a few parallel strokes indicating the part, a curl at the right lower edge where the hair turns under. This is the least elaborate of Sidney's many hair descriptions — no waves, no loose strands, no movement — and the restraint suits the subject's own stillness.
The face is described with the minimum necessary marks: the brow with a single heavy stroke on each side, the nose with three or four marks, the closed or nearly-closed mouth with a single mark, the chin with a curve. At the eye sockets, crosshatching adds depth without describing the eyes in detail — they are present without being specific, which gives the portrait a slightly veiled quality.
The open collar with two buttons described below grounds the figure and connects it to the similarly collared portrait of the Young Woman (601) — these may be sessions with the same model or sitter at different times.