Beautiful black & white picture of a Dodo statue by David Champion, aka, biker500, with a pinhole camera.

Well it’s what they think a Dodo looks like round here. Pinhole image on 135 Rollei Retro 100. Six second exposure.

I don’t care much for auction, unless is something really impressive, like the image above: A dodo. Yes, a dodo, but not a regular dodo image, a dodo watercolour from the Dutch School. The Dutch, the same people that colonized Mauritius, and a drawing is from the 17th Century, which means that the chances of that painting had a real dodo as a model were pretty high.

The Lot Notes from Christie’s page:

This previously unpublished drawing of a dodo is an important and interesting addition to the known images of this iconic extinct bird. First recorded by Dutch mariners who explored Mauritius in the last years of the 16th Century, the dodo was extinct by 1700, and has fascinated the popular consciousness ever since. Early images which are extremely rare, can usually be linked to one of a handful of prototypes. However, this vibrant study has no relation to any of the known visual sources. It rivals in vivacity the representations by Jacob Hoefnagel (circa 1610; National Library of Austria) and the head study, possibly from life, by Cornelis Saftleven (1638; Boymans Museum, Rotterdam; E. Fuller, Dodo: From Extinction to Icon, London, 2002, pp. 80-81, 111). The possibility that the present drawing was also sketched from life, while unlikely, cannot be completely discounted. Live dodos are known to have been transported from Mauritius as curiosities. A dodo was recorded at the menagerie of the Mogul Emperor Jahangir in about 1625 (Institute of Oriental Studies, St Petersburg; Fuller, op. cit., pp. 94-5); and, in about 1638, Sir Hamon L’Estrange saw a live dodo exhibited in London (Fuller, op. cit., p. 69). The present drawing is unusual, however, in the lightness of the plumage. It has some similarities to the colouring of the bird shown in a watercolour by Pieter Holsteyn (Teylers Museum, Haarlem), dating from the 1630s. Traditionally called the White Dodo of Réunion, the bird in the Teylers drawing is now thought to show an albino specimen (Fuller, op. cit., p. 170), which may also be the case in the present drawing.

The inscription on this drawing, ‘Dronte’, was the Dutch 17th-century name for the dodo, although at this period it was also used in a number of other languages including French and Italian.

So, I was fascinated for that incredible preciosity, but, there was a little problem, the price: Christie’s estimated it around £5,000 – £7,000. Actually my first thought was: that is too cheap for what it really is. I asked for donations, but, oh well, got none. And since I didn’t have all that money on my walled on that moment, I didn’t buy it (if I was millionaire I would easy try to buy it).

In the end, I didn’t buy it and the estimated price was really low: it was sold for £44,450. A much more reasonable price for it, in my humble opinion. It deserved a even higher price, however, I’m not the best person to estimate the price of a dodo image.

If you want to appreciate a bigger version of it, go to explore the Christie’s Zoom Image page.

Running Slowly by Leah Palmer Preiss, aka Curious Art. I loved it!

According to my trusty 1878 Chambers’s Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, “The birds were easily killed, being wholly unable to fly, and running slowly. Their speedy extinction after the islands began to be visited and settled, is thus easily accounted for.”

Maybe it was the shoes?

Acrylic on text & map of Mauritius, 4×5″

Dead Dutch Authors as Dodo Birds: paper mache dodo birds made from the writing of obscure, dead, Dutch authors, 6″ long, $1500. By Alain Douglas Park.

From Cryptomundo: What Did A Dodo Look Like?

In line with a question during an earlier discussion about how might have the dodo really appeared, the famed artist and Hollywood special effects man Bill Munn [...] contacted me.

Munns wrote: “I have done scientific reconstructions of the Dodo (of how they may have looked) with all coloration based on actual descriptions and the head sculpted from a skull cast provided by the Harvard Museum of Natural History.”

The following reconstruction is what Bill Munns created of the dodo, and may be the closest thing we have to how a living dodo looked in the wild.

The following reconstruction is actually the picture you saw above. For a bit more about information about Munns visit his site.

Detail from Big Baby Tiger and Dodo, and Mini Baby Tiger and Dodo, both by Heather, aka littlecabbage on Flickr.

Dodo And Boy Sculpture by Alena Wooten, via her deviantART page.

I had the pleasure of working with the incredible Vince Nguyen here at Blue Sky on this piece! This sculpture is based on his character he designed for a children’s book. (I’ll try scanning in the drawing I used to create this scupt) I must say, these talented folks I work with in the design dept. sure keep me busy with all these “SIMPLE” designs. Hard and time consuming to sculpt, but so fun nonetheless!

And from Vince Nguyen blog, Louis and The Dodo Sculpt:

So here’s a beautiful sculpt of Louis riding a dodo bird by Alena Wooten. The character was shown in a children’s book called Louis and the Dodo. It was one of my first children’s book years ago and it’s still one of my favorite books I’ve worked on. Alena is a super star sculptor at Blue Sky Studios and I jumped at the chance to get her to sculpt anything for me.

And finally the very cute illustration with the original characters from the book Louis & the Dodo by Mark Shulman, illustrated by Vincent Nguyen:

Harri’s dodos in the bedroom, protecting them while they sleep. Kristiina’s Housewarming photographed by Joshua Bousel.

A Dodo In Grand-Bay, photo by Delicious Mauritious.