 In 1856 , William <unk> announced the discovery of a 17th @-@ century " Persian " painting of a white dodo among <unk> , which he had been shown in England . The artist was later identified as Pieter Withoos , and many prominent 19th @-@ century naturalists subsequently assumed the image depicted the white solitaire of Réunion , a possibility originally proposed by ornithologist John Gould . Simultaneously , several similar paintings of white dodos by Pieter Holsteyn II were discovered in the Netherlands . In 1869 , the English ornithologist Alfred Newton argued that the Withoos ' painting and engraving in Bontekoe 's memoir depicted a living Réunion dodo that had been brought to Holland , while explaining its blunt beak as a result of beak <unk> to prevent it from injuring humans . He also brushed aside the inconsistencies between the illustrations and descriptions , especially the long , thin beak implied by one contemporary account . 
