K\o\\Li;i)r,i:. 



March, 1912. 



C'oininisriary l)on/il Iblietson (tlu- j;i:m<ll;itlur ol tlx' 

 late Sir I). C. ]. Ihlxtson), who was tlic autlior of 

 a wliole siTies of portraits of Naiiolcon executed 

 between August, 1815, when Ihhetson first went out 

 to St. Helena in the " Xorthunil)erlan(I.'" and ISJI. 

 when he hvcd in a house 

 near Lonj^wdod and 

 acted as pur\e\-or to the 

 exiles." 



.'\ third postiiumous 

 portrait of Najioleon (see 

 l-'igure 101) was made by 

 a Chinese artist, who is 

 said to have been em- 

 ployed as a cook on the 

 Longwood establishment. 

 A great many of these 

 were executed on white 

 satin, and sold as one 

 of a series of six drawings. 

 These sketches have recently fetched as much as £6. 



It now only remains to speak of the two death- 

 masks of Napoleon, one of which was taken by 

 Dr. Antommarchi. A cop\' of this mask is shewn at 

 the Invalides. Another (now reproduced) is in my 

 own collection. Mr. Watson says that Burton took 

 the cast after the Corsican doctor had failed. He 

 has discovered a memorandum in the Lowe papers to 

 the effect that " The Bertrand kept the face and 



FiGl'RE 104. 



Napoleon as he api)eared when his coffin was opened at 



St. Helena on October 13th, 1840, nineteen and a half 



years after his death. 



m.itrix. not from that of Arnott. .\ little later (in 1822 

 of lNi.5) Pistrucci, of .50, Coventry Street, published a 

 lithogra|)h from a drawing of one or other of these 

 masks, ])rol)ably .\ntomniarrhi"s. beneath which he 

 pia<<il the fdlliiwin;' inscription: — 



■'After the death of Napoleon 

 in the Island of St. Helena. 

 General Bertrand ordered a 

 C'ast of Napoleon's face to be 

 taken whilst he lay dead, 

 (ienl. Bertrand when arrived 

 in France had some t'ortraits 

 taken from this Cast by 

 Made. Jacotot, a Painter of 

 I'orcelaine at Sevres. From 

 one of the said Portraits, 

 now in the possession of Mr. 

 Lewis Goldsmith of London. 

 I have, with his permission 

 made the present Lithographic 

 Drawing, and composed the 

 following lines in the native 

 Language of Napoleon. 

 " Nacqui in Ajaccio, ma il destin che scrive 

 Dell'uom la sorte in I'ordin suo profondo 

 Mi trasse in I'rancia e sulle mille rive 

 Che varcai la bilancia ebbi del mondo 

 " Or mentre il nome mio superbo vive 

 Forse a niun altro in paragon secondo 

 lo morto son e mi ricopre appena 

 Un freddo sasso in quasi ignota arena" 



" I". PiSTRUCCi, 30, Coventry Street." 

 Whin the coffin of Napoleon was opened, nineteen 



FiGl'Kl- 



Major Stewart's view of the " Briars." Napoleon's first 



residence at St. Helena (October-November, 1815), in which 



one of Ibbetson's interesting "back" portraits of Napoleon 



is introduced. 



Dr. F>urton the back or craniological part." .\ 

 second cast was i)resumablv taken bv Dr. .Arnott, and 

 a copy of this, officially stated to have been presented 

 by .Arnott to John (iawlcr Bridge, Court Jeweller 

 to George I\'., was recently sold at the dispersal 

 of the Bridge relics in Dorsetshire. It was stated 

 at tile time that " only two casts were taken 

 at -St. Helena, and the matrix destroyed. The other 

 cast belongs to the French Government, and is in 

 the Invalides at Paris." The first fact should be 

 ofRciall\' verified, as the second is erroneous. The cast 

 in the Invalides is from the so-called Antommarchi 



I IGL'Kli 106. 



CJrij;inal water-colour sketch of Napoleon's Funeral (Nhiy, 

 1.S21), in Mr. A. M. Broadley's collection. 



years later, [irior to the removal of his remains to 

 I-" ranee, his features appeared to have undergone verv 

 little change, and they still attested the correctness 

 of Ibbetson's death-bed sketch. (See Figure 104.) 

 Tile last word about St. Helena has not been 

 said, but much new light is thrown on the " Last 

 Piiase" In- the work' of Mr. G. L. de St. M. 

 Watson, who. before writing his scholarh- and 

 instructive book ".A Polish Kxile with Nai>oleon," 

 with exem[)lary patience went througii tlie whole 

 of the Lowe MSS. in tiie British Museum, as 

 well as a mass of other new and valuable material. 



