A large, sustained pencil portrait of an older man — one of the most fully modeled faces in the entire portrait series. A flat cap sits squarely on the head, its brim creating a strong horizontal across the upper composition; below it, a face of weathered character: heavy brows, deep-set eyes, a broad nose, lips set with quiet determination. The chin carries a small goatee, briefly but specifically indicated.
The tonal modeling here is among the finest in the pencil portraits — the shadow under the brow, around the eye sockets, and along the jaw all built from multiple overlapping marks that build genuine three-dimensionality. This face has lived in it, and the pencil records that. The cheeks have weight; the jaw is set; the eyes, though barely described, carry a quality of someone who has seen a great deal and remained calm.
Below the face, a collared jacket or coat is suggested with confident strokes — the lapels, the collar, the mass of the torso. The clothing roots this person in a specific social world: this is not a studio subject but someone encountered, someone known.
Signed "Sid" at lower right — the informal signature Sidney used for works he considered complete and personal. The cap and the goatee together read as deliberate choices that define this person's self-presentation.