The two versions of The Abduction of Daniel Boone's Daughter by the Indians by Charles Wimar (1828–62) reveal a remarkable alteration in conception in the span of only two years. The earlier version (Fig. 1), painted in 1853, is a rather unimaginative picture rooted in an overworked tradition. In 1855 Wimar produced a much more original painting (Fig. 2), which reflected an enlightened approach to the myths of the American West. Although the two works were painted while Wimar was studying at the Düsseldorf Academy, he gained his knowledge of Indians from firsthand experience while growing up in the frontier city of Saint Louis, to which he had emigrated from Germany at the age of fifteen. Wimar devoted the bulk of his oeuvre to Indian subjects, mostly portraits and genre scenes. A narrative subject dealing with a specific and, by that time, legendary figure such as Daniel Boone's daughter was atypical for Wimar. By probing the background and sources of this theme, both literary and pictorial, one can bring to light the aspects of frontier mythology embodied in these paintings.