This is a picture of a black silver classic tabby Oriental Longhair cat by Tessa Photography (tessa.lv). The cat is said to be International Champion Noxx Zlatan Ibrahimovic by the website catcolours.com.
I will say a few things about the cat and the photograph. I think most people now know what a tabby cat is. They come in three types, classic, spotted and striped. The classic tabby is where the pattern is blotched. There are a wide range of patterns under this heading whereas spotted and striped are self-explanatory.
The idea of a “black tabby” seems to me to come from the fact that the tabby pattern is dark and dense as is the case with this individual cats. The coat approachs black sometimes because the patterning is extensive. The reference to “silver” is the background colour of this cat.
The Oriental Longhair is part of the Siamese cat family which includes the Siamese, Balinese (long-haired Siamese) and other breeds because they all contain some Siamese in their DNA.
The Oriental Longhair like the shorthaired variety is bread to be elegant with a long tubular body and long legs. Their heads are also bred to be elongated. The cat fancy refer to them as “wedge-shaped”. They have a long neck as well.
This particular cat is not bred to extreme. I’ve seen Oriental Shorthair cats far more extreme in their appearance than this individual. This cat has been photographed in profile which lets us see the shape of the skull which is described in the CFA breed standard as “a straight line is seen from the top of the head to the tip of the nose. No bulge over eyes. No dip in nose”. And the nose is described as: “long and straight. A continuation of the forehead with no break”.
You can see that very clearly in the photograph. You have this rather unusual straight line from the forehead down to the end of the nose in profile.
As to the photography, of course it is good but I would have made sure that the dark areas of the fur were illuminated a bit more brightly otherwise you just have a mass of black and it is more difficult to see clearly the pattern. If the photographer visits this page she should know that I did lighten the dark areas slightly just to bring out the pattern and I subdued the highlights also slightly.
As to the copyright of the photograph, I would hope that she allows me to publish it here. If she has a problem she can leave a comment and we can discuss it.
