Napoleon on his death bed, 1821, (1921). Portrait of French former emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) who died in exile on the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic on 5 May 1821. The next day, Captain Denzil Ibbetson came to Longwood House to sketch the body is it awaited autopsy. He gave the finished painting to Napoleon's last rival, St Helena's governor Sir Hudson Lowe, who in turn gave it to King George IV, as proof (in the era before photography) of Napoleon's death. Lithograph published in 1855 by John Gibbs, after Ibbetson. From "Napoleon", by Raymond Guyot, [H. Floury, Paris, 1921]