The Authentic Image
of
Daniel Boone
BY CLIFFORD AMYX*
Three major strands occurred in the development of the
imagery of Daniel Boone. The primary one, the bust portrait
by Chester Harding, has served as a frontispiece to many
Boone biographies. It represents the only image "from the
life," and it is the source for all the authentic bust portraits of
Boone. Another strand is the popular image of the frontier
adventurer, fighting Indians and wild animals in the wilderness of early Kentucky, dressed in a coonskin cap with the
tail flopping at every move. This image begins with the naive
engravings in Timothy Flint's Biographical Memoir of Daniel
Boone, 1833, and continues in dime novels and the lurid
yellow backs, even into the school histories of Boone and
Kentucky. A third strand, and a very thin one, is the full-
length Boone engraved by James Otto Lewis from Harding's
full-length painting, or a sketch of it. Through a double
misfortune this image disappeared from history, for a while.
Harding destroyed his full-length painting of Boone, saving
only the head, and the engraved prints by Lewis were hidden
away, unnoticed. Thus, the authentic full-length image of
Boone remained lost for a century, and Harding's oil painting of the full figure of Boone has been lost forever.
Chester Harding is responsible for two of these strands,
and his motives and accomplishments in painting Boone are
important. Harding came to Kentucky from New England as
a young man to join his brother Horace in Paris. He had
stopped for a while at Pittsburgh, where he saw a portrait
painter at work, and by the time he reached Paris he was
sufficiently adept at painting a likeness to make a good
living at "$25 a head." When he saw the superiority of
Matthew H. Jouett's painting in Lexington, however, he realized his deficiencies and decided to go East to observe the
painter Thomas Sully at work in Philadelphia. Actually, he
did not study with Sully and returned to Paris only to find
* Clifford Amyx is emeritus professor of art at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.
153
