Study of Giraffe Notecard

This well known image, a favorite in the Morgan Shop, was part of an album formed by a nineteenth-century collector in the south of France.

As a specialist in depicting animals, Nicolas Hüet (1770-1828), the son of Jean-Baptiste, was the official painter for the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle de la Ménagerie, Paris. He must have been one of the first to paint the celebrated giraffe, the belle enfant des tropiques, the first ever to be seen in France. The viceroy of Egypt presented the giraffe to Charles X in 1827. Installed at the Jardin des Plantes, it was seen by over 600,000 visitors in the first six months alone. Hüet's exquisitely worked portrait shows the giraffe in its new home with the groom who came with it and cared for it for the next eighteen years.

This notecard was produced from the Morgan’s collections to accompany the exhibition Walton Ford: Birds and Beasts of the Studio on view at the Morgan Library & Museum April 12, 2024 through October 20, 2024.