- An antique snuffbox owned by Napoleon Bonaparte
- Owned during his exile on St Helena, circa 1815-1821
- Offered with an unbroken 203-year chain of provenance
A lacquered snuff box dating from the early 19th Century, and measuring 5.5cm x 3cm x 2cm.
The lid is decorated with a chequerboard pattern line detail with gold coloured central cartouche.
Attached inside the lid is a silver engraved plaque, which bears the inscription:
“THIS BOX BELONGED TO NAPOLEON AND WAS GIVEN BY MADAME BERTRAND TO LIEUT. HAYNE R.A. AT ST HELENA 8TH MAY 1821”
The box is preserved unrestored in its original condition, with a beautifully worn patina and signs of frequent use.
Provenance:
Following his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon was captured and exiled to the remote island of St Helena, 1,200 miles off the coast of Africa.
He was kept under constant guard by British soldiers, and forced to live in much-reduced circumstances.
Tormented by his captors and plagued by loneliness and regret, he passed away on May 5, 1821.
This snuff box, well-used due to his frequent consumption, was amongst the artefacts he left behind on the island.
The inscription inside the box states it was given by Madame Bertrand to Lieutenant R.A Hayne on May 8, 1821.
Madame Bertrand is Élisabeth Françoise 'Fanny' Dillon (1785 - 1836), a French noblewoman and wife of General Henri Gatien Bertrand, Napoleon's trusted aide-de-campe.
The couple followed Napoleon into exile twice – first at Elba in 1814, then St Helena in 1815, where they remained until Napoleon's death in May 1821.
During this period Madame Bertrand was Napoleon's close attendant and secretary, who kept a record of everyone who visited him.
She was also present in his room at Longwood when he died.
Lieutenant Richard Hayne (1804 - 1874) was a member of the Royal Artillery stationed on St Helena, and was also described as being in “close personal attendance” of Napoleon during his exile.
He is listed as a member of the firing party at Napoleon's funeral on May 6.
Hayne went on to serve in Canada in 1830, and in 1838 became the first Commanding Officer of the Royal Canadian Artillery in New Brunswick.
In 1898 the Dundee Herald reported that Hayne's daughter had auctioned a collection of her father's Napoleon items at Sotheby's.
Before leaving St Helena, Hayne passed the box to another British soldier stationed on the island: Lieutenant Philip Ditmas, a member of the 66th regiment 1st battalion.
The box then passed down by descent through five generations of the Ditmas family to the present day.
This is an exceptional piece of Napoleonic history with remarkable provenance.
As such, it represents a unique opportunity to acquire a museum-quality artefact and would take pride of place at the heart of any major history collection.
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