Head of a Woman Looking Down
Female head with elaborately coiled hair; a later inscription below
On reddish-toned prepared paper a woman's head is drawn inclined steeply downward and seen in near profile, the face softly modelled in chalk with lowered eye and faint smile. The hair rises in a broad smooth mass swept back from the brow and is gathered into thick braided coils, with tight curls falling at the nape. A handwritten inscription runs along the lower left edge and a collector's stamp appears at the lower right; this untranscribed writing is present on the sheet but is not read here.
On this page
Downturned female face
The face is bent sharply downward in three-quarter profile, the delicately shaded eye, nose and mouth caught in soft light while deeper shadow gathers under the brow and along the jaw. The expression is calm and inward.
Coiled and braided hair
The hair rises in a smooth rounded mass from the forehead and is bound behind the head into layered braided coils. A cluster of small ringlets curls at the nape, and the whole coiffure is worked up in dense, luminous chalk.