About Me

My photo
Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Thursday, April 12, 2012

josephine baker had a cheetah

...named Chiquita, who was male.  She brought him with her seemingly everywhere, and bought him a diamond  choker.  I wish I could find a photo I was allowed to post!  But I can at least send you...
... to a photo of Josephine and Chiquita having a stroll
...to a wonderful short article on Josephine Baker and Chiquita from the Victoria & Albert Museum
...and a charming Casino de Paris poster of Baker and buddy by artist Zig (Louis Gaudin), about which I can find not a whit of info.

By the way, the third Mughal Emperor, Akbar the Great, kept as many as a thousand cheetahs at a time.  
The Mogul emperors constantly used this animal, and kept surprising numbers of them. Akbar the Great, Emperor of Hindostan, 1556—1605, had one thousand cheetahs to accompany him on his hunting expedition, forming ia itself a large encampment, for they were kept with great state, and the chief one called Semendmanick, used to be carried to the field in a palankin attended by his appointed servants, and a kettledrum beaten before him. -- John Fortune Nott, Wild Animals Photographed and Described, 1886, p. 88.

No comments: