The hunt goes on.

I continue to search, continue to hope.
I continue to find really weird alternative elephants.
At some point, for some reason the part of the French Natural History Museum that housed the taxidermied (wow is that a word?) specimens was closed off. It was left this way, abandoned, for decades! Eventually, a Swiss painter, Jurg Kreienbuhl discovered it and did a series of paintings of what he found there. I love this idea. I have no idea how Mr. Kreienbuhl happened to be the one to discover the lost collection. All of the articles I find about the discovery are in French. I can read just enough to make sense of the main points.

I am slightly worried that my elusive elephant may have been an ad for Mr. K's work being shown somewhere about Paris. I don't know. I know that he was showing his paintings of the Natural History Museum in 1985. It's more of a lead than I have ever had before.

I will keep looking.