A large horizontal figure drawing in red chalk — sanguine — and among the finest life drawings in the collection. A female figure reclines and leans back, her legs extending to the lower right in a long diagonal, one knee bent. The upper body turns toward the viewer, the face seen in profile with an expression of concentration or slight defiance, the eyes looking forward.
The red chalk gives this figure an entirely different quality from the blue pencil group: warmer, more intimate, more closely related to the sanguine portrait (639) in its tonal relationship. The warm cream paper and the red chalk together create a palette that is both classical and contemporary — the same combination that Leonardo, Raphael, and Watteau used, Sidney working in a tradition that extends back five hundred years.
The line work is among the finest in the figure drawings: the single-stroke contour of the leg from hip to foot, the double-mark of the breast, the delicate face described in a few sure marks. The hand at the lower left — fingers slightly spread, resting on the surface — is drawn with the attention to individual fingers that characterizes all Sidney's best hand drawings.
The composition uses the paper format intelligently: the figure extends across the full horizontal field, the diagonal of the legs creating an active compositional energy. The figure is not resting passively but oriented, directed — she is looking at something.