Egyptian Mau History
From the book by Didier Hallépée “Egyptian Mau cat,” Carrefour’s net
In the early twentieth century, Italy was populated descendants of Egyptian cats. According to the descriptions, many of them were spotted cats dress like the cats of the pharaons.
With World War II, many cats died in Italy, and the direct descendants of Pharaonic cats have disappeared. However, one can still find some house cats spotted in Italy, and even, say, in Provence. In the film “The Horseman on the Roof ‘(1994 – Jean-Paul Rappeneau), the feline hero has all the characteristics of a bad bronze.
Similarly, in North Africa, the brown speckled with black cat still seems fairly widespread. Cats of the streets with the appearance of bad bronze are reported to Morocco. On the other side of Egypt, one can also find this type of chat along the Silk Road.
Nathalie Trubetskoy was an exiled Russian princess that the chances of life had led to settle in Rome. Nathalie was a true love of cats. One day a boy brought him a kitten in a cardboard box. The beauty of this unusual kitten immediately conquered.
The kitten was named Ludivine and nicknamed Ludolit or Lulu. Lulu was a beautiful silver color with black spots. The princess saw that the box in which the kitten had been brought from Egypt came.
Thus she deduced the origin of this wonderful cat. It was soon realized she had fallen down on one of the cats of Pharaoh. It set in motion his many friends to find her another cat of this type in order to have kittens of the same appearance.
Friends found him Gregorio, a 11 year old black male from a family spotted.
His friend, the ambassador of Syria brought him a true subject of the Near East, Geppa, a male black smoke. Lulu and Geppa soon gave birth to their first litter (1953) who was also spotted as his parents. Of these, Nathalie Troubetzkoï kept a small silver female, Baba. Then Baba said Gregorio beautiful kittens also spotted (1953), among them a new color of a cat, Jojo, a bronze.
Nathalie Troubetzkoï began to show her cats in Italy and continued to breed. Liza (Lisa or Donna) was presented in competition in Rome in 1955. In 1956, she was finally allowed to emigrate to the United States. Unable to take all her cats, she had to select only three of them and found a home for others. Thus Baba, Jojo and Liza went to conquer the United States. Once installed, Nathalie Troubetzkoï continued to work to know the cats of Egypt, and expose them recognized as a race as the Egyptian Mau. It created its breeding under the cattery name of Fatima.
In 1957 Baba was the first race to be crowned champion.
All breeding Egyptian Maus are descended from these first issues.
We can easily imagine the problems of inbreeding inherent to the early Egyptian Mau. It is reported that the Princess used one of his house cats to reduce inbreeding, but this does not appear in the pedigrees.
Since the fifties the British have been seduced by the Maus. Limited in their import quarantine, they tried to “recreate” the race from Abyssinian hybrid of Siamese and tabby cats. At first, these cats were called Maus, but were eventually recognized as a specific Eastern variety: the Oriental spotted tabby.
It was after this, that in some ill-informed book, you can sometimes see the bad that comes down from the Siamese and its morphology resembles it. Inaccuracies die hard …
The maus knowing a great success, other breeders bought them with the Princess and made farming. They had great success in exhibition. However, race was not yet recognized, and maus could therefore claim any title.
These early breeders and Princess Troubetzkoy did much to publicize the race. Thanks to them, maus were accepted by the different organizations and get an American feline pedigree.
Finally, the bad was recognized as a breed by the CFA (Cat Fancier Association) in 1977, by TICA (The International Cat Fancier) in 1988 and the FIFe (Federation Internationale Feline) in 1992. With this recognition, he was finally able to purchase securities on display.
In 2004, GC’s Tavaron Coolpepper Dott played the role of the cat ‘Midnight’ in the film Catwoman.
Raising a race from the original three subjects is not easy. In the early 90s, other topics have been introduced in Egypt, including J. Len Davidson (Grandtrill) et Cathy Rowan (Rocat) and recognized by the CFA :
- Hosny of Grandtrill
- Giza of Grandtrill
- Wasaya of Grandtrill
- Waafaya of Grandtrill
- Tarek of Jamila
The lineage of Jamila Tarek Hosny of Giza and has come down to us.
Despite a few outside contributions, raising the Egyptian Mau is naturally concerned about the problems of inbreeding.
In 1999, Didier and Marie-Christine Hallépée reintroduced topics directly from Cairo: Sahure, Otta and Maslama, which helped to preserve the natural beauty and charming personality of the bad while giving it a strength and health to all test. All these lines in France benefit from these contributions that can be found also in many foreign lines.