480 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1965 



trators of this fabulous fowl. This is a painting by van Kessel, done 

 about 1660, now in the Prado, the great art gallery of Madrid. The 

 dodo is included among a very large number of birds in a many-seg- 

 mented triptych representing the Animal Kingdom. Hachisuka 

 (p. 56) notes an oil painting of a dodo, "gaunt, but not moulting," done 

 about 1655 by Johannes van Kessel. This picture, said to be in Munich, 

 has been assumed by Killermann to be a copy of one done in 1605 by 

 Clusius, whereas Oudemans considers it to have been done from a living 

 bird. Hachisuka argues for the latter view, stating that "since it is 

 improbable that a painter like Johannes van Kessel of Amsterdam 

 would use the old picture of Clusius as a model for his painting of a 

 Dodo, as Killermann thinks, it may be assumed that there was a living 

 specimen in Amsterdam at the time . . ." This is supported by the fact 

 that van Kessel did a second version of the dodo, in the picture now in 

 Madrid. This later version, apparently overlooked by all previous 

 writers on the subject, is clearly not based on the old, crude one by 

 Clusius, a fact that is in complete agreement with the presumed inde- 

 pendence of van Kessel from Clusius, his predecessor by half a century. 



Still another unpublished, fairly early, although definitely post- 

 humous portrayal of a dodo may be mentioned here. It is a small draw- 

 ing on a sheet measuring only 8 by 6 inches, by Aert Schouman, a Dutch 

 painter and engraver. Inasmuch as the artist was not born imtil 1710, 

 nearly 30 years after the dodo was last seen alive, it is obvious that this 

 sketch could not have been done from a living model. In fact, the un- 

 certain, rather hesitant treatment of the tail, which is depicted almost 

 as if it were something behind, on the far side of the bird and merely 

 projecting beyond it, rather than an outgrowth from the posterior end 

 of the body, bears this out. This drawing was included in an exhibition 

 at Agnews, in London, in November 1955, and is now the property of 

 K. J. Hewitt, of that city. I am indebted to both the dealer and the 

 present owner not only for the photograph of this interesting sketch 

 but also for permission to publish it here for the first time (pi. 5) . 



Schouman was bom in Dordrecht in 1710 and died in The Hague in 

 1792. He painted numerous pictures in which birds played a conspicu- 

 ous part and worked, on the whole, somewhat in the manner of the bet- 

 ter known bird painter Melchior Hondecoeter, but he also did work in 

 portraiture and genre. His drawing of a dodo shows the top of the 

 head covered with rather ruffled, frowzy dark feathers, agreeing in this 

 respect with van Kessell's Madrid version. It is not unlikely that he 

 may have seen van Kessell's picture and partly derived his from it. 



