Nicolas Hüet, the Younger (1770–1828), Study of the Giraffe Given to Charles X by the Viceroy of Egypt, 1827 , Watercolor and some gouache, over traces of black chalk, Purchased on the Sunny Crawford von Bülow Fund, 1978 , 1994.1
A Parisian Giraffe and her Caretaker
This drawing, most probably from life, is of the famous nineteenth-century giraffe known as Zarafa with Atir, her Sudanese caretaker. Atir lived with Zarafa for eighteen years in the Jardin des Plantes and "slept within scratching reach of her head." A political gift from the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Muhammed Ali, to Charles X of France, the giraffe was part of an attempt to convince the king not to interfere in the war between the Ottoman Empire and the Greeks. Her journey from Sudan to Paris took two years and entailed two boat rides and a 550-mile walk from Marseilles to Paris. It is estimated that over 100,000 people—an eighth of the population of Paris at the time—came to see her.