Position of a soldier: annihilation of the bowels

Satirical drawing of a cadet pointing at a man in civilian clothes who is trying to stand at attention. Drawn while Whistler was a cadet at West Point. Probably from the Alexander Webb album.

Signed: J.W.
On front, lower right, in unknown hand: "J McN Whistler 1852."
Cream wove paper with slight cockle finish; no watermark.
On back: red collector's stamp of J & ER Pennell (Lugt Suppl. 874a).
James McNeill Whistler : drawings, pastels, and watercolors : a catalogue raisonné / Margaret F. MacDonald. New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, 1995, no. 103 (p. 31)
Purchase; Pennell Fund; 1944; (440038-3).
Forms part of the Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell Collection of Whistleriana.