page_title: Zarafa (giraffe)
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Zarafa (giraffe) / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Painting of Giraffe Crossing by depicting.
context_page_description: Zarafa 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.
context_section_description: 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.  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.  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, 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.  Porcelain and other ceramics were painted with giraffe images.  She was painted by Nicolas Huet, 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.
caption: The Passage of the giraffe near Arnay-le-Duc (1827) by Jacques Raymond Brascassat, showing Zarafa with entourage en route to Paris
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