The early history of mosasaur #paleoart is pretty darn interesting. After their discovery in 1764, it seems to take 90 years(!) for someone to attempt to reconstruct one. Here's the 2nd oldest restoration I know of, from Riou's 1863 book La Terre avant le déluge.

This image is interesting for being one of the only memetic followings of the @cpdinosaurs Mosasaurus recon, which - as late as 1854 - might be the first mosasaur life restoration. Note the boxy head and laterally situated nostrils - uniquely Hawkinsian reconstruction choices.

The short-lived "broad Mosasaurus head meme" is a little strange. Mosasaur skull shape was known from excellent American fossils as early as 1845 (below, from Georg Goldfuss' description): perhaps the CPD team didn't know about this specimen?

Superior American mosasaur specimens start appearing in earnest in the 1860s, so broad-headed mosasaur art swiftly died out. But instead of modern-grade recons, we get highly serpentine takes, like this chap from 1869 (on the right, behind the tyrannosaur)...

...and this crazy guy from 1872. Yikes.

Something resembling a modern mosasaur (some niggles aside) was finally reached in an 1877 Hawkins painting. There may be earlier 'modern' mosasaur artworks out there, but you get the point: it took a long time to start reconstructing mosasaurs, and even longer to get them right!