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Charles Ferdinand Wimar

The Abduction of Daniel Boone's Daughter by the Indians

1853

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A German-born immigrant to the United States, Charles Wimar painted The Abduction of Daniel Boone's Daughter by the Indians while working in Düsseldorf with the famed history painter Emmanuel Leutze. Fascinated by the American frontier, Wimar focused during this period on images of Native American conflicts with settlers, in particular the theme of captivity and abduction, as portrayed here. This theme appeared widely in the popular literature and visual arts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in which it was fashionable to mythologize the struggles of the frontier with exotic portrayals of the West and Native Americans. Wimar's painting, like others of the time, reinforces notions of Native Americans as savage and white settlers as cultivated and divinely ordained—a notion that helped justify white colonization of the West. Inspired by Daniel Bryan's epic poem The Mountain Muse, Wimar here depicted three natives seizing Jemima Boone as she picks wildflowers along the Kentucky River. Also drawing on traditional religious imagery, Wimar portrayed the captive young woman in the pose of a praying saint or martyr, further suggesting the piety and innocence of Christian Europeans and the aggressiveness and barbarity of Native Americans. [Permanent collection label, 2016]

  • Artist Charles Ferdinand Wimar (American, b. Germany, 1828–1862)
  • Title The Abduction of Daniel Boone's Daughter by the Indians
  • Date 1853
  • Medium Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions unframed | 40 5/16 x 50 1/4 in.
  • Credit line Gift of John T. Davis, Jr., 1954
  • Object number WU 4335

Real / Radical / Psychological: The Collection on Display
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 09/09/2016 - 01/15/2017

American Places: Painting the Landscape in the Nineteenth Century
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 09/20/2013 - 01/06/2014

Weltclasse. Die Düsseldorfer Malerschule 1819–1918 (Worldclass: The Düsseldorf School of Painting, 1819–1918)
Museum Kunstpalast (Düsseldorf, Germany), 09/23/2011 - 01/22/2012

The American West: Selections from the Washington University Collection
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/03/2002 - 04/14/2002

St. Louis and the Art of the Frontier
Saint Louis Mercantile Library, University of Missouri—St. Louis (St. Louis, Missouri), 11/11/2000 - 01/31/2001

American Painting of the 19th Century
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere (Vienna, Austria), 03/17/1999 - 06/20/1999

Counter Perception: The Shaping of Our Culture
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/09/1997 - 05/16/1997

Green Acres: Neocolonialism in the U.S.
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 09/11/1992 - 11/01/1992

Columbus of the Woods: Daniel Boone and the Typology of Manifest Destiny
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/24/1992 - 03/29/1992

Carl Wimar: Chronicler of the Missouri River Frontier
Amon Carter Museum of American Art (Fort Worth, Texas), 05/04/1991 - 08/04/1991
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/26/1991 - 03/24/1991

Nineteenth Century Art from the Collection
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/19/1986 - 04/01/1986

Parsons Collection
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/15/1983 - 08/21/1983

The Centennial Exhibition
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/15/1981 - 10/11/1981

Kaleidoscope of American Painting, Eighteenth & Nineteenth Centuries
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri), 12/02/1977 - 01/22/1978

The Hudson and the Rhine: die amerikanische Malerkolonie im 19. Jahrhundert
Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf, Germany), 04/04/1976 - 06/20/1976

American Panorama
Denver Art Museum (Denver, Colorado), 03/17/1968 - 05/27/1968

Carl Wimar: Painter of the Indian Frontier
Saint Louis Art Museum, 10/18/1946 - 12/15/1946

Tenth Annual St. Louis Fair
St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association (St. Louis, Missouri)

Fourth Annual St. Louis Fair
St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association (St. Louis, Missouri), 09/26/1859 - 10/01/1859

Third Annual St. Louis Fair
Venue Unknown (St. Louis, Missouri)

First Annual Exhibition
St. Louis Exposition and Music Hall (St. Louis, Missouri)

1954
Erin Davis

Inscription Recto, lower left, in script, in black paint: C. Wimar / Dusseldorf 1853

This artwork record may be incomplete or need refinement. Our staff actively researches the collection and revises records when new information is available. If you have questions or comments about this record, please contact us.

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