A large sheet of ‘Napoleon’s Wallpaper’ Napoleon - the covers of a 19th scrapbook, clad in a deep blue paper featuring a gilt pattern featuring butterflies and flowers, approx 26x19cm. The paper shows signs of wear but the pattern is clearly discernable. Inside there is a ms inscription which reads: ‘The paper covering this scrapbook and forming its binding was taken from the bedroom of Buonaparte and once decorated his walls at Longwood in the Island of St Helena. June A.D. 1823’ This is the third example of ‘Napoleon’s Wallpaper’ we have seen and by far the largest. When Napoleon died in 1821 it is known that British soldiers on the island who had been guarding him took many items as souvenirs which appear on the market from time to time. Items have included locks of his hair, pieces of wood taken from the coffin in which he was buried at the time (and later exhumed for re-burial in Paris) and various other items. The wallpaper has, however, a fascinating story as it has been suggested in recent years that it was this that actually led to his death. It has been argued that ironically the British provided the best possible fixtures and fittings to Longwood house for Napoleon’s long incarceration. The wallpaper was of the finest quality, but at that time, manufacturers used a high level of arsenic to produce it. The argument has therefore been made that in the hot and humid atmosphere of the south Atlantic, the arsenic from the wallpaper leached out to form arsene gas, and it was the poisonous atmosphere, particularly in Napoleon’s bed chamber which eventually killed him.