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Comment by bertil

3 days ago

I’m very tempted to agree with you: people who draw from description draw unicorns after being told about rhinoceroses. We have a lot of medieval monks’ drawings of elephants by description and theirs look like tapir with a trumpet stuck in their nose. This is not a photo, of course but it mainly highlights the head, like any one would if they didn’t measured proportions carefully.

> tapir with a trumpet stuck in their nose

Oh, that’s hysterical. I’ve seen drawings exactly like that, in illuminated manuscripts, and your description is perfect :D