How Zarafa, France’s First Giraffe, Became a Cultural Sensation

Описание: In late-1820s Paris, women wore their hair in towering horn shapes, people pasted giraffe-themed wallpapers on their homes, fabric was manufactured in spotted patterns, and one of the most popular colors was “giraffe yellow.” Everything was “la mode à la girafe.” The cause of this frenzy for the African mammal was the arrival of a dainty young creature from Sudan: the first giraffe in France.

She’s now known as Zarafa, thanks to Michael Allin’s thorough and engaging 1999 book “Zarafa: A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris.”

“Giraffe, girafe, giraffa (English, French, Italian) — all derive from the Arabic zerafa, a phonetic variant of zarafa, which means ‘charming’ or ‘lovely one,’” Allin explains in the book. In her lifetime from 1825 to 1845 she was called “la Belle Africaine” (“the Beautiful African”), or simply “la girafe,” being that there were no others. Taken from her mother as a baby, and carried on the back of a camel, Zarafa was spirited away from her home as a gift to Charles X, King of France.

Read more in Allison Meier’s classic Hyperallergic article through the link in bio.
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#Giraffe #ArtHistory #France #Sudan