3-082-381 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The New Giraffe at the Zoological Society's Gardens, Regent's Park: artists on duty, 1895. 'The giraffe which has recently lent a new glory to the Zoo has been, ever since its arrival at Regent's Park, "the cynosure of all eyes.' The beautiful animal has submitted with the best of grace to the inevitable interviewer, and has posed most excellently fit the benefit of the continuous procession of artists who have made more or less accurate and pleasing pictures of London's latest distinguished visitor...For a few years the Zoological Society's Gardens have been a giraffe-less waste...The present animal comes from Portuguese territory, and appears to belong to a distinct variety of the beast, which is slightly different from the more familiar giraffe. The first giraffes that came marched in solemn procession from Blackwall [on the River Thames]; this animal came by train in a more modern fashion. The difficulty presented by the bridges which infest the railway from Southampton was got over by an ingenious system of packing the animal. The journey cannot have been altogether pleasant to the giraffe; but she can console herself by the perfectly legitimate boast that she is at present the only giraffe in Europe'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.