Femme accroupie, executed in gouache and pencil on cardboard in 1951, captures Henri Laurens at the height of his mature figurative vision. The crouching female form, rendered with the sculptor's characteristic economy of line, demonstrates how Laurens translated his deeply spatial sensibility onto paper, building volume through fluid contour rather than elaborate detail. The warm, earthy palette of the gouache reinforces the earthbound quality of the pose, a figure gathered inward, grounded and self-contained, yet radiating the organic fullness that defines his late work. Laurens spent the final decades of his career devoted almost exclusively to the female figure, and works on paper from this period reveal the immediacy and confidence that come from a lifetime of sculptural thinking. The relatively modest scale of this piece, 30.3 by 35.6 centimeters, belies its visual authority. Each mark carries weight precisely because nothing is superfluous, the pencil establishing structure while the gouache breathes warmth and tactility into the composition. The cardboard support, favored by Laurens for its receptive surface, lends the work an additional intimacy. Signed by the artist and presented in its frame, Femme accroupie is a refined example of mid-century French draughtsmanship and an ideal entry point into Laurens's graphic work for collectors seeking depth and integrity in works on paper. Offered through Bailly Gallery, the piece carries the quiet authority of an artist who never sought spectacle, only truth in form.