Collection: Personalised Chartreux Gifts

The Chartreux hails from France and is a rare breed. Large and muscular with short limbs – this is described as ‘cobby’ – they have a distinctive blue fur for which they are highly prized. You can tell how old a Chartreux cat is as, like all French pedigree cat breeds, the year of the cat’s birth is allocated a letter and all cats born in that year will have names which begin with the same letter.

The Chartreux is known as ‘the smiling breed’ as the shape of the rounded head narrowing to their muzzle gives the impression that they are smiling.

The Chartreux is fabled to have been bred by the Carthusian monks at their monastery in the Chartreuse Mountains in Grenoble alongside the very famous green liqueur of the same name.

The cats are said to date from the 13th century brought to the monastery so legend has it by knights returning from the coast of Africa. The sotte vocce tone of the cats is reputedly a breed characteristic so the monks were not disturbed in their prayers. Other sources put the cat’s origins nearer to the 16th century when they are mentioned in the Histoire Naturelle in the 1700s. This mentions four cat breeds of which the Chartreux is one.

In the 1920s, two sisters discovered a colony of cats on Belle-lle, a tiny French island. The sisters developed the breed and the first example was exhibited in 1931 in France. Rescued after the Second World War when numbers had dwindled at an alarming rate, other breeds were used in the mix such as British Blues, Russian Blues and Persians to increase the gene pool and ensure the survival of the breed.

The Chartreux is a cat devoted to people – sweet-natured and affectionate, they are happy on a lap and will follow their owner from room to room. Playful and athletic, the Chartreux is a fearless hunter but has an adaptable nature so can adjust to lots of different home environments.