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The Persian cat, also known as the Persian longhair, is a long-haired breed of cat characterised by a round face and short muzzle.
Buy Persian Kittens For Sale. The Persian cat, also known as the Persian longhair, is a long-haired breed of cat characterised by a round face and short muzzle. The first documented ancestors of Persian cats might have been imported into Italy from Khorasan as early as around 1620, however, this has not been proven. Instead, there is stronger evidence for a longhaired cat breed being exported from Afghanistan and Iran from the 19th century onwards. Widely recognised by the North-West European cat fancy since the 19th century, and after World War II by breeders from North America, Australia and New Zealand. Some cat fancier organisations’ breed standards subsume the Himalayan and Exotic Shorthair as variants of this breed, while others generally treat them as separate breeds.
The selective breeding carried out by breeders has allowed the development of a wide variety of coat colours, but has also led to the creation of increasingly flat-faced Persian cats. Favoured by fanciers, this head structure can bring with it several health problems. As is the case with the Siamese breed, there have been efforts by some breeders to preserve the older type of cat, the Traditional Persian, which has a more pronounced muzzle and is more popular with the general public. Hereditary polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is prevalent in the breed, affecting almost half of the population in some countries.
In 2021, Persian cats were ranked as the fourth-most popular cat breed in the world according to the Cat Fanciers’ Association, an American international non-profit cat registry.
History
Origin
It is not clear when long-haired cats first appeared, as there are no known long-haired specimens of the African wildcat, the ancestor of the domestic species.
An Angora/Persian from The Royal Natural History (1894)
The first documented ancestors of the Persian cat might have been imported from Khorasan, either Eastern Iran or Western Afghanistan, into the Italian Peninsula in 1620 by Pietro Della Valle; and from Damascus, Syria, into France by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc at around the same time. While the de Peiresc import from Syria is corroborated by later correspondences, Della Valle is only known to have voiced his intention in a letter from 1620 but returned to Italy much later in 1626 after travelling several other countries with the remains of his wife in tow and no further mention of the cats.
In his letter from 1620, Della Valle distinguishes the Khorasan cat from similar long-haired cats imported to Europe from the Near East by their grey coat:
At this point I have found in this country a very beautiful species of cats which are native to the province of Khorasan, but of another appearance and quality than those of Tyre [Lebanon]. We estimate them to be of high value; however, they mean nothing to the people of Khorasan. I am inclined to bring them to Rome and to populate Italy with this breed. Their size and their form are like those of ordinary cats. All their beauty is in their coat which is gray without any speckles and without any spots, of one color throughout all the body, being a little lighter on the chest and the stomach which goes somewhat whitish, with an agreeable shade of light brown, as in paintings when one color is mixed with the other to give a marvelous effect. Buy Persian Kittens For Sale
Albeit of unclear geographic faithfulness, the name Persian cat was eventually given to cats imported from Afghanistan, Iran and likely some adjacent regions for marketing purposes in Europe. Persian-speakers themselves are not documented to refer to any breed of cat as “Persian cat”, or “gorba-ye pârsi”. Instead variations of “gorbe-ye borāq” (Naficy, 1967, p. 68; Haïm, 1969, I, p. 244), “gorbe-ye barrāq” (Steingass, 1892: 1078), and “gorbe-ye barāq” appear in Persian dictionaries of the 19th and 20th centuries
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