A large profile portrait in which the hair's elaborate structure is the primary subject — and the most formally inventive of the bun portraits. The hair sweeps back from the profile in multiple long waves, each wave described in a separate arc, the strands building a complex overlapping mass. At the nape, the hair is gathered and coiled into a low bun — a rounded form built from a series of concentric arcs that spiral inward, the individual coils of the bun visible in the drawing marks.
This bun is the most carefully described in the portrait series: not a single mass but an explicitly coiled form, the spiral structure of the coil rendered with the same attention Sidney brought to the spiral in all its appearances — from the Cosmic Spiral abstracts to the Dancer's Bow to the Eye of Everything. A bun is a spiral; Sidney drew it as a spiral.
The profile itself — seen from the left, the face directed forward and slightly downward — is described with economy: the brow line, the slight upturn of the nose, the lips, the chin. The ear is partially visible through the hair, its inner curve described in a brief mark.
The jacket collar at the lower portion indicates a clothed figure without elaborating the garment. The overall composition — the face at left, the elaborate hair sweeping right — gives the drawing its horizontal energy and its formal interest.