'Napoléon à Ste Hélène'

Photograph of a drawing by Delaroche, drafted around 1852 as preparatory for an enormous painting that was never completed. Although the drawing was later destroyed, an oil-study survives at the Royal Collection (RCIN 404876). The work depicts Napoleon I (1769-1821) at St Helena, the island on which he was exiled from 1815 to 1821. The abdicated emperor is shown full-length, seated on a ledge on a promontory overlooking the sea. He faces the spectator, resting his head on his right hand, his right elbow propped on a niche in the rock beside him; he wears a brooding or melancholic expression.