[Richard P. Feynman]

Although she remains unknown, the subject of this pencil and ink drawing by Richard Feynman is one of his most serious and evocative; he would go on to paint a full color portrait of her soon after this study was done (sold here at Sotheby's in 2023). She immediately draws the viewer in with her pensive gaze, slightly turned away from us as if contemplating some distant point. She appears to be at once brimming with youth in casual dress with her loose ponytail thrown over one shoulder, and simmering with experience, her eyes appearing fixed, somewhat serious.

Feynman would famously ask the girlfriends of his graduate students to pose for him, a pool of subjects which one could imagine were just as accomplished in their own right, and the current portrait could be a reflection of such subjects, learned and pointed in their expression.   

Illustrated in: The Art of Richard P. Feynman, 1995, fig. 27 (page 86).