40 years after the Battle of Waterloo, Delaroche began work on an enormous painting of Napoleon on St Helena, the island on which the abdicated emperor was exiled from 1815 to 1821. Delaroche has imagined Napoleon marooned on a desolate promontory overlooking the sea, emphasising the remote location of his exile. Although Delaroche’s painting was never completed, an oil study survives (also in the Royal Collection) and was the basis for this evocative lithograph.