Study of the Giraffe Decorative Plate

Who doesn't need a plate with a giraffe on it?! A favorite from the Morgan's drawings collections, this watercolor is vibrantly reproduced on this collector plate. For decorative use only.

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.