Cone sisters | |
|---|---|
 Etta Cone circa 1889  Claribel Cone circa 1891 | |
| Born | Claribel –(1864-11-14)November 14, 1864, Etta –(1870-11-30)November 30, 1870 |
| Died | Claribel – September 20, 1929(1929-09-20) (aged 64), Etta – August 31, 1949(1949-08-31) (aged 78) |
| Resting place | Druid Ridge Cemetery[1] |
| Education | Western Female High School Women's Medical College (Claribel) |
| Occupation(s) | Art collectors Physician/researcher (Claribel) |
| Parent(s) | Herman (Kahn) Cone Helen (Guggenheimer) Cone |
Claribel Cone (1864–1929) andEtta Cone (1870–1949), collectively known asthe Cone sisters, were active as American art collectors andsocialites during the first part of the 20th century. Claribel trained as aphysician and Etta as apianist. Their social circle includedHenri Matisse,Pablo Picasso andGertrude Stein. They gathered one of the best knownprivate collections ofmodern art in the United States at theirBaltimore apartments, and the collection now makes up a wing of theBaltimore Museum of Art. Their collection was estimated to be worth almost a billion US dollars in 2002.
The Cones' parents were Herman (Kahn) Cone and Helen (Guggenheimer) Cone, who wereGerman-Jewish immigrants. Herman, who had immigrated from Altenstadt inBavaria (South of Ulm),anglicized his last name[2] (changing it from "Kahn" to "Cone") almost immediately upon arrival in the United States in 1845. Until 1871, the family lived inJonesboro, Tennessee, where they had a successfulgrocery business. Claribel and Etta were born in Tennessee. Claribel, the fifth child in the family of thirteen children,[3] was born November 14, 1864. Etta, the ninth child in the family, was born November 30, 1870.[4] The Cone family had a history of slave ownership. Their father Herman and his brother-in-law Jacob Alder purchased three enslaved people in 1863.[5]
The family then moved toBaltimore, Maryland.[6] The eldest Cone brothers, Moses and Ceasar, later moved permanently toGreensboro, North Carolina. They established atextile manufacturing business named the Proximity Manufacturing Company (later known asCone Mills Corporation, now a unit ofInternational Textile Group). The textile mills that their brothers started would make the Cone sisters wealthy, as Moses and Ceasar shared in their financial success with their siblings.[6]
The Cone sisters graduated from theWestern Female High School. Against family wishes, Claribel studied at theWomen's Medical College of Baltimore.[7] She graduated in 1890 and completed an internship atBlockley Hospital for the Insane inPhiladelphia. She then worked in thepathology laboratory of theJohns Hopkins Medical School and did postgraduate work at theUniversity of Pennsylvania with the ambition of becoming a medical doctor, but ultimately never practiced clinical medicine. Claribel focused instead on teaching and research as a professor of pathology for 25 years at the Women's Medical College.[8] Etta was a pianist and managed the family household affairs.[3][4] The sisters traveled to Europe together yearly on long trips beginning in 1901.[6]
The Cone sisters were friends of literary figures such asGertrude Stein andAlice B. Toklas. Their social circle included French artistHenri Matisse and Spanish painterPablo Picasso.[9] Etta began purchasing art in 1898, when she was given $300 by a brother to decorate the family home.[3] Her purchase of fiveimpressionistic paintings byTheodore Robinson began a lifetime of collecting. Her tastes at first tended toward the conservative,[10] but one day in 1903, while the Cone sisters were on a European holiday, they visited Stein and her brother inParis.[11] Etta was introduced to Picasso, followed by Matisse the next year, marking the beginning of her lifelong love of his art.[12][13][14] The relationship the Cone sisters developed with Matisse was so close he referred to them as "my two Baltimore ladies."[15] Matisse once did a sketch of Etta.[16]
Etta made purchases to help upcoming artists like Matisse, Picasso, and students of theMaryland Institute College (MICA). She also bought at very low prices from the Steins, who were perpetually in need of money and were known to purchase discarded sketches from Picasso at his art studio for two or three dollars apiece.[10] Claribel acquired much moreexperimental grade works. She purchased Matisse'sBlue Nude for 120,760francs andPaul Cézanne's mountain paintingMont Sainte Victoire as Seen From Bibemus Quarry for 410,000 francs. Etta, being more financially conservative, was more likely to spend 10,000 francs for a collection of drawings or paintings.[17] The Cone sisters had a special interest in Matisse'sNice period.[18] After Claribel's death, Etta became more adventurous in her purchases, for instance, purchasing Matisse'sLarge Reclining Nude (The Pink Nude) for 9,000 francs in 1936, or about $2,000 US at the time (equivalent to $36,849 in 2019).[19]
Gertrude Stein and her older brotherLeo Stein had been orphaned in 1892 and relocated to Baltimore to reside with their mother's sister.[20] This had led to their becoming part of the Cone sisters' social crowd. During Claribel's time at the Women's Medical College ofJohns Hopkins University, Gertrude was also studying there. There were many differences between Claribel and Gertrude. These individualistic women were attracted to each other, however, by their common interest in music, fine arts, and sociable conversations. Etta credited Leo Stein with helping her develop an appreciation ofmodern art.[21] Etta was more reserved. She admired Gertrude'sBohemian lifestyle, and biographerBrenda Richardson concludes that there is a strong possibility Etta and Gertrude were at one point lovers.[22]
.jpg)
The sisters' particular social contacts produced an advantage from which they could compile a world-renowned art collection.[18] The Cone sisters built up a large collection of paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne,Paul Gauguin andVincent van Gogh.[10]
Gertrude Stein later tried to undermine the Cone sisters as mere shoppers guided by their taste. In fact, the sisters had an excellent feel for fine art, influenced by the large collection of books on art which they purchased and used.[23] The two sisters lived in apartments next to each other at the Marlborough Apartment building onEutaw Street in theBolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore for fifty years. Their art was hung on the walls of their individual apartments. The sisters' nephew later recollected that their display of pictures covered most of the wall space, even the bathroom walls.[10]
The Cone sisters also had an impressive collection oflace acquired from various European sources. From earlydrawnwork styles such asreticella, toneedle lace andbobbin lace styles spanning the centuries, the Cone sisters amassed important examples that also reside in theBaltimore Museum of Art today and have been exhibited.[24] Examples of the Cone lace pieces include aChantilly lace fan,[25] aPoint de France flounce,[26] and many other styles.
While the sisters' collection remained private until Etta's death, Etta occasionally lent pieces to museums for exhibition. Claribel had willed her artistic paintings to Etta, spelling out in her will that these paintings should be transferred to theBaltimore Museum of Art if there was an interest in modern art. The bulk of the collection eventually went to that museum by Etta's will, and a new wing was added to the museum for theCone Collection in 1957. The collection consists of approximately 3,000 items the Cone sisters had acquired over 50 years. The collection has not only French art, but American art as well,[27] including over 1000 American prints, illustrated books, and drawings. Among these were cloth goods,costume jewelry, tables, chairs, and cabinets.[22] The Cone sisters' items also includeCoptic fragments,Middle Eastern silks, eighteenth-century jewelry, nineteenth-century furniture,oriental rugs, African adornment,Japanese prints,Egyptian sculpture, and antiqueivory carvings. The Cone Collection is used by art students and scholars from around the world as a research source.[27] The estimated value of the Cone Collection in 2002 was close to $1 billion.[28]
The Cone Collection includes Matisse'sBlue Nude (1907) andReclining Nude (1935), Cézanne'sMont Sainte Victoire as seen from Bibémus Quarry (1897), Gauguin'sWoman of Mango (1892), and Picasso'sMother with Child (1922).[22] The Cone sisters collected pieces from throughout Matisse's painting career, accumulating 42 of his oil paintings, 16 sculptures, 35 drawings, 150 prints, and a half dozen books of illustration, as well as over 200 hand drawings, art prints, and illustratedcopper plates from Matisse's first published book of illustration,Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé. Other Matisse works they acquired were the 1917Woman in a Turban (Lorette),Seated Odalisque, Knee Bent, Ornamental Background (1928), andInterior, Flowers with Parakeets (1924).[22] The 500 works by Matisse in the Cone sisters' collection form the largest and most representative group of his art work in the world.[29]
The Cone sisters also acquired many of Picasso's works, and among these were 114 prints and drawings from his early years inBarcelona and from hisRose period (1905–1906) in Paris.[22]
A portion of the Cone art collection, including many Matisselithographs and bronzes, resides at theWeatherspoon Art Museum at theUniversity of North Carolina, where the Cone Mills were located. Moses Cone's vacation homeFlat Top Manor was located in nearbyBlowing Rock, North Carolina, and the Cone sisters often visited their brother there.[6][17] Other visitors included Julius Cone – another of the Cone siblings – and his wife Laura, who was an alumnus of the University of North Carolina. Laura was aware that the Weatherspoon Art Gallery had been formed on the campus in 1942, and she asked Etta if she would be interested in making a gift of art. In her will, Etta left an endowment to the Weatherspoon Art Gallery consisting of sixty-seven Matisse prints, six Matisse bronzes, several modern prints, and art by Picasso,Félix Vallotton,Raoul Dufy, andJohn D. Graham.[3]
Claribel died September 20, 1929.[30] Etta died on August 31, 1949.[31] The Cone sisters were buried at Baltimore'sDruid Ridge Cemetery in an area called Hickory Knoll. The only word on their ten-by-ten familymausoleum is "Cone". Architect James O. Olney designed the Tennessee marblemausoleum, which is flanked by two Roman-style columns of Vermont granite and has two age-darkened bronze doors in front.[28]
InImmigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, vol. 3, edited by Giles R. Hoyt. German Historical Institute. Last modified February 24, 2015.
......