Books and Manuscripts

Karl Bodmer and Jean-François Millet's Rare Lithographs of the Capture and Rescue of Jemima Boone and the Callaway Sisters

Capture of the Daughters of D. Boone and Callaway by the Indians
(Paris, London, Berlin & New York: Goupil & Co), 1852. Hand-colored lithograph. Printed by Lemercier, Paris. No. 1 from the series Annals of the United States Illustrated, The Pioneers. Text printed in English and in French at bottom. Laid down on paper; all edges trimmed, with imprint excised along bottom edge; scattered spotting and soiling in margins, scattered abrasions and short closed tears along same. 17 3/8 x 24 (441 x 610 mm).

Together with:

Deliverance of the Daughters of D. Boone and Callaway
(Paris, London, Berlin & New York: Goupil & Co), 1852. Hand-colored lithograph. Printed by Lemercier, Paris. No. 2 from the series Annals of the United States Illustrated, The Pioneers. Text printed in English and French at bottom. Laid down on paper; all edges trimmed, with imprint excised along bottom edge; scattered spotting and soiling in margins, scattered abrasions along same affecting a few words at bottom; scattered, generally light, edge-wear. 17 3/8 x 23 3/4 in. (441 x 603 mm).

A very rare pair of prints by Swiss artist Karl Bodmer and French painter Jean-François Millet, illustrating the capture and rescue of the daughters of Kentucky frontiersmen, Daniel Boone and Richard Callaway. In 1849, Bodmer moved to Barbizon, France, where he became acquainted with a group of innovative landscape painters, including Camille Corot, Charles Jacque, Théodore Rousseau, and the then unknown Millet. Shortly after, Bodmer, who was by this time famous for his illustrations of American Plains Indians, was commissioned by an American publisher to create a portfolio of prints illustrating early American frontier life. Overbooked with commissions, Bodmer recruited his friend Millet to help him with the project, and a spirited collaboration arose where Millet drew the figures and Bodmer the backgrounds. Although five images were transferred to lithographic stone for printing, only four images were printed when the publisher cancelled the project after discovering that Bodmer was not the sole artist. The incomplete series was printed under the title Annals of the United States Illustrated, The Pioneers, and included the two images above, as well as two others, illustrating frontiersmen Simon Butler and Samuel McCulloch.

Of the four images published it has been thought that only a handful of each lithograph were ever printed, with one previous cataloguer suggesting only half a dozen per print. Complete sets are thus very rare, and we have only been able to locate three, at the New York Public Library, the British Museum, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Incomplete sets are similarly rare, with only a few institutions holding one or two prints, including the University of South Carolina, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Cornell University, and the Kentucky Historical Society. Rare to auction, the last offered was a complete set, in 2006.

Ten days after the Declaration of Independence, on July 14, 1776, Jemima Boone and the Callaway sisters, Elizabeth and Frances, were kidnapped near their home, the Kentucky frontier settlement of Boonsboro. While playing in a canoe on the Kentucky River the girls came ashore on the banks of contested land, and were captured by a group of Cherokee and Shawnee Native Americans. Over the next three days a pursuit ensued between Daniel Boone and his men and the Native American captors, which culminated in a bloody confrontation, and the girl's rescue, on July 17. Over the following 100 years the episode was often retold--and reimagined--and became a popular subject for 19th century authors and artists, including inspiring James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans.