Zarafa (January 1824 [lower-alpha 1] – 12 January 1845) was a female Nubian giraffe who lived in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris for 18 years. A gift from Muhammad Ali of Egypt to King Charles X of France, she was one of three giraffes Muhammad Ali sent to European rulers in 1827. These were the first giraffes to be seen in Europe for over three centuries, since the Medici giraffe was sent to Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence in 1486. She didn't receive the name "Zarafa" until 1985. [2]
The giraffe known today as Zarafa was one among a series of diplomatic gifts [lower-alpha 2] exchanged between Charles X of France and the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, Mehmet Ali Pasha, to enhance their relationship.
The young Nubian giraffe was captured by Arab hunters near Sennar in Sudan and first taken by camel, then sailed by felucca on the Blue Nile to Khartoum. From there she was transported down the Nile on a specially constructed barge to Alexandria. [3] She was accompanied by three cows that provided her with 25 litres of milk each day.
From Alexandria, she embarked on a ship to Marseilles, with an Arab groom, Hassan, and Drovetti's Sudanese servant, Atir. [4] Because of her height, a hole was cut through the deck above the cargo hold through which she could poke her neck. After a voyage of 32 days, she arrived in Marseilles on 31 October 1826. Fearing the dangers of transporting her by boat to Paris around the Iberian Peninsula and up the Atlantic coast of France to the Seine, it was decided that she should walk the 900 km to Paris.
She over-wintered in Marseilles, where she was joined by the naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire for the walk. He ordered a two-part yellow coat to keep her warm, and shoes for her feet. She set out on 20 May 1827, [4] already 15 cm taller than when she arrived in Marseilles. She was accompanied by her cows and Saint-Hilaire, then aged 55, who walked with her. The trip to Paris took 41 days. She was a spectacle in each town she passed through, Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Orange, Montelimar and Vienne. She arrived in Lyon on 6 June, where she was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of 30,000.
She was presented to the King at the chateau of Saint-Cloud in Paris on 9 July 1827, and took up residence in the Jardin des Plantes. Now standing nearly 4 m high, Zarafa's arrival in Paris caused a sensation. Over 100,000 people came to see her, approximately an eighth of the population of Paris at the time. Honoré de Balzac wrote a story about her; Gustave Flaubert (then a young child) travelled from Rouen to see her. La mode à la girafe swept the nation; hair was arranged in towering styles, spotted fabrics were all the rage. The Journal des Dames reported that the color known as "belly of giraffe" became extremely popular. [5] Porcelain and other ceramics were painted with giraffe images. She was painted by Nicolas Huet, [5] Jacques Raymond Brascassat and many others.
Zarafa remained in Paris for a further 18 years until her death, attended to the end by Atir. Her corpse was stuffed and displayed in the foyer of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris for many years, before being moved to the Museum of Natural History of La Rochelle, where it remains.
According to Saint-Hilaire, she was called le bel animal du roi ("The Beautiful Animal of the King") during her trip from Marseille to Paris [6] and she was dubbed la Belle Africaine ("the Beautiful African") by contemporary press. La Gazette referred to her as "her Highness" (pun intended). [lower-alpha 3]
The name "Zarafa" was given to her by American author Michael Allin in his 1998 book Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris. Zarafa, meaning "charming" or "lovely one" in Arabic, is a phonetic variant of the Arabic word for giraffe: zerafa. [8] [lower-alpha 4] [lower-alpha 5] Olivier Lebleu, author of the new preface to the second edition (2007) of the French journalist Gabriel Dardaud's book Une giraffe pour le roi (the first modern full-length work about France's first giraffe) has taken up the name "Zarafa," as have several other recent authors, including Lebleu himself in his 2006 book Les Avatars de Zarafa. In addition, the eponymous 2012 French animation film Zarafa uses the name; and even the museum in La Rochelle, where her mounted remains still greet visitors, now refers to her by the name Zarafa. [11]
Muhammad Ali Pasha also sent two other giraffes as gifts in 1827, one to George IV of the United Kingdom in London and the other to Francis I of Austria in Vienna. Like the giraffe sent to France, both inspired giraffe crazes in their respective cities. The Austrian giraffe joined the Emperor's menagerie at Schönbrunn Palace but survived for less than one year. Nevertheless, it lived on in the form of Giraffeln pastries, served until the beginning of the First World War, and Giraffentorten (giraffe cakes) which still can be found. [12] [13] The English giraffe (or "cameleopard", echoing the terminology used by Pliny) joined the embryonic London Zoo in Regent's Park. It was painted as The Nubian Giraffe in 1827 by Jacques-Laurent Agasse, in an image that includes Edward Cross and, in the background, the giraffe's milk cows from Egypt. The English giraffe survived for less than two years, and was stuffed by John Gould.
1827 (MDCCCXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1827th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 827th year of the 2nd millennium, the 27th year of the 19th century, and the 8th year of the 1820s decade. As of the start of 1827, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
The year 1827 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Jean-Baptiste Geneviève Marcellin Bory de Saint-Vincent was a French naturalist, officer and politician. He was born on 6 July 1778 in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne) and died on 22 December 1846 in Paris. Biologist and geographer, he was particularly interested in volcanology, systematics and botany. The standard author abbreviation Bory is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
Frédéric Cailliaud was a French naturalist, mineralogist and conchologist. He was born, and died, in Nantes, where he was the curator of the Natural History Museum of Nantes from 1836 to 1869.
La Celle-Saint-Cloud is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is a western outer suburb of Paris, 15.6 km (9.7 mi) from its centre, on the departmental border with Hauts-de-Seine. In 2021, it had a population of 20,476.
The government and people of Niger observe twelve official public holidays. These include international commemorations, the commemoration of important dates in the history of Niger, and religious holidays. Both Christian and Muslim holidays are observed as official public holidays.
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Ali Bitchin was a "renegade" who made his fortune in Algiers through privateering. Bitchin was believed to be born with the family name of Piccini or Puccini or Piccinino in Venice. He was a Grand Admiral of Algiers and is known for a mosque he built in the district of Zoudj-Aïoun in the old city (Casbah), which still bears his name today.
Mohammad Dinah Salifou Camara was the last king of the Nalu people of Guinea. He is often presented as one of the great figures of resistance to colonial penetration into sub-Saharan Africa, but also has some notoriety for his noted participation at Expo 1889 in Paris. At the end of his life, he was exiled to Saint-Louis, Senegal, under house arrest, where he died in poverty. Dinah Salifou was the holder of the Légion d'honneur.
Illa Meery was a Russian-born French adventuress, singer, film actress and possibly Soviet spy who became involved in the French black market under German occupation.
Jeanne de Flandreysy, born Jeanne Mellier was a French author and literary critic. She was the author of many books about Provence, and she promoted Franco-Italian cultural exchanges.
Louis-François Jauffret was an 18th–19th-century French educator, poet and fabulist. Gaspard-André Jauffret, bishop of Metz, Jean-Baptiste Jauffret, director of the imperial institution of the deaf in St. Petersburg and Joseph Jauffret, master of requests to the Conseil d'État, were his brothers.
Charlotte-Adélaïde Dard was a French writer best known for La Chaumière africaine ou Histoire d'une famille française jetée sur la côte occidentale de l'Afrique à la suite du naufrage de la frégate La Méduse, an autobiographical account of events following a shipwreck off the west coast of Africa.
Heather J. Sharkey is an American historian of the Middle East and Africa, and of the modern Christian and Islamic worlds. Her books and articles have covered topics relating to nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, postcolonial studies, missionary movements, religious communities, and language politics, especially in Egypt and Sudan. She is currently Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.
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Marguerite-Marie-Sophie Polliart or Poliart, generally known by her stage name Priola, was a French operatic soprano. She made her début on 6 April 1869 in Paris as The Messenger of Peace in the first French production of Wagner's Rienzi at the Théâtre Lyrique. She enjoyed a successful career at the Opéra-Comique until 1874, performing mainly coloratura soprano roles. There she created several roles, including Princess Elsbeth in Offenbach's Fantasio, Maritana in Massenet's Don César de Bazan, and Javotte in Le Roi l'a dit by Delibes. In 1876, she joined the Opéra de Marseille, where she appeared as Philine in Mignon by Ambroise Thomas. Unable to use her voice to its full potential due to illness, she was booed throughout the performance. The illness developed into a serious outbreak of typhoid fever and she died three weeks later at the age of 27.
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