Around 1800 Mademoiselle Coignet created this copper after an illustration by Jean-Gabriel Prêtre. At that time only Steller's descriptions were known, and the animal was commonly classified as a herbivorous seal. Decades later still the animal was frequently illustrated resting on land.
 

About 1835 Johann Andreas Fleischmann made this etching for Schreber's^*)Dr. Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber (1739-1810) "Die Säugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur", obviously a copy of the Pallas Picture.

Still in 1860 Fitzinger^*)Leopold Josef Fitzinger (1802-1884), curator of the reptile and mammal collection of the "Imperial and Royal Zoological Court Cabinets" showed in his "Bilder-Atlas zur wissenschaftlich-populären Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere in ihren sämmtlichen Hauptformen" the animal resting on shore. Besides this obvious mistake and the shape of the head, this image seems quite plausible.

Joseph Smit, in "Extinct Monsters" by Reverend HN Hutchinson, 1893

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