General Bertrand in his notes (page 261, Les Cahiers, 6 May 1821) mentions: “At 10 o’clock Mr Ibbetson and the frigate Captain Marryat came to draw the Emperor on his deathbed. It appears Mr Marryat had achieved a fairly good likeness”.
Captain Marryat made several copies of these drawings, some of which arrived in England on board Heron, together with the news of Napoleon’s death on 4 July 1821 (See our article First accounts of the “Death of Buonaparte” in the British newspapers, by Peter Hicks). Numerous copies and versions of Marryat’s drawings were published in the weeks and months following the news that the Emperor had died. See here for an engraving, published less than 2 weeks later on 16 July 1821, (by S&J Fuller, Rathbone Place), clearly intended for export since the inscription was in French.
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The sketch is annotated with this text:
“Sketch of bonaparte as laid out on his Austerlitz camp-bed, taken by Capt Marryat, 14 hours after his decease, at the request of Sir Hudson Lowe with the permission of the Count Montholon and General Bertrand”
This file is part of our Close-up on the death of Napoleon.
