One of the finest portrait drawings in the collection — a frontal pencil portrait of a young woman whose direct gaze is the most compelling in all of Sidney's figure work. The face is seen nearly full-frontal, slightly tilted, with large eyes that look directly at the viewer with an expression of complete and quiet attention. This is not the inward looking of the downcast portraits, not the avoidance of the three-quarter views — this face looks straight out, and it looks with full presence.
The long loose hair is one of the most accomplished hair descriptions in the figure drawings — multiple sweeping strokes that follow the hair's fall from the crown, separating into loose waves at the sides and curling under at the lower edges. The hair's volume and movement frame the face with a natural softness that the face itself does not have — the face is the still center of a composition of movement.
The pencil work throughout is sustained and deliberate — the tonal buildup around the eyes, the modeling of the cheeks, the careful description of the nose and lips. This is not a quick sketch but a sustained engagement with a face. The paper is large, and the figure occupies it generously, the hair reaching nearly to the paper's edges on both sides.
Signed "Sidney Cothran" at lower right. The work has the quality of a finished portrait — Sidney understood this as complete and signed it as such.
This face belongs in the front matter of the book. Of all the faces Sidney drew, this one looks back most directly.