Sisters Cone

Claribel Cone, Gertrude Stein and Etta Cone in Settignano near Fiesole in June 1903

The sisters Cone were Claribel Cone (born November 14, 1864 , † September 20, 1929 ) and Etta Cone (born  November 11, 1870 , † August 31, 1949 ) from Baltimore . Together, the two wealthy society ladies brought together one of the best collections of modern French art in the United States of America during the Gilded Age (1870s to around the turn of the century) .

Life

The father of the sisters was Herman (n) Kahn, who was born in Altenstadt an der Iller (Bavaria) in 1828 and emigrated to the USA at the age of 17 to avoid military service. Here he changed his name to Cone. His wife Helen, née Guggenheimer, also came from Germany. Until 1871 the family lived in Jonesborough , Tennessee , where they ran a successful grocery store. The first five of their twelve children, including Claribel and Etta, were born here before the family moved to Baltimore, Maryland.

The two oldest brothers, Moses and Ceasar (sic!) Later moved to Greensboro , North Carolina . They founded a textile company there, which they called the Proximity Manufacturing Company , but which was commonly known as the Cone Mills Corporation and is now part of the International Textile Group . During the First World War , the company of "Brother Moses" contributed significantly to the growth of the family fortune.

The two sisters, one of whom (Claribel) had a stronger personality and was independent, while the other (Etta) was known to be talkative and fond of company, lived in neighboring apartments in a house on Eutaw Street in Baltimore for fifty years . Both graduated from Western Female High School .

Claribel attended the Women's Medical College of Baltimore and received her PhD there in 1890 to become a doctor and pathologist. She worked in the pathology laboratory of the medical school at Johns Hopkins University , but never as a doctor in private practice. She taught pathology and exchanged ideas with European researchers in her field.

Etta was a trained piano player and ran the family household. Both traveled frequently and for a long time to Europe, from 1901 almost annually.

Foragers

Blue plaque for the Cone Sisters in Bolton Hill, Baltimore

The sisters were friends with writers, especially Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas , and visual artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso .

Etta started buying art in 1898 when she received $ 300 from one of her older brothers to use to decorate the family home. From this beginning with five paintings by Theodore Robinson a lifelong passion developed. At first she had a rather conservative taste, but one day in 1905, when the sisters were on a trip through Europe, they visited Gertrude Stein in Paris . Etta was introduced to Picasso and then the following year to Henri Matisse , whose art would become a focus of her collection. Etta made a few small purchases to help emerging artists, including at home with the Maryland Institute College of Art . She also shopped very cheaply at the Steins, who were in constant need of money, and is said to have bought discarded drawings from Picasso's studio for only $ 2 or 3 each.

In contrast to her sister, Claribel generously acquired the works of the artistic avant-garde . She bought Matisse's painting Blauer Akt (Memory of Biskra) for 120,760 francs and Paul Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen From the Bibemus Quarry for 410,000 francs for her collection. Etta was much more conservative and generally spent a maximum of 10,000 francs on a painting or group of drawings. A collection focus for both was the Nice period in Matisse's work.

Cones and Steins

Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo were orphans and moved to Baltimore to stay with an aunt. Soon after, they became part of the Cone Sisters' circle of friends. When Claribel was studying at Women's Medical College , Gertrude was her fellow student. Though there was a wide age difference between the two, these unconventional women were fond of each other and shared a common interest in music, the visual arts, and high-quality entertainment. Etta later thanked Leo Stein for awakening her sense of modern art. Etta was actually reserved and conservative. However, she was intrigued by Gertrude's revealing bohemian lifestyle, and there are indications that the two of them had a love affair for a while. However, this relationship cooled off when Alice B. Toklas entered Gertrude's life.

In her work Two Women , Gertrude Stein wrote about the two of them:

"There were two of them, they were sisters, they were large women, they were rich, they were very different one from the other one."

"There were two, they were sisters, they were great women, they were rich, they were very different from each other."

Social status

It was above all their social contacts that gave the two sisters an advantage and made it possible for them to bring together a collection of world renown. Her collection included paintings, drawings and sculptures by Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh , Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne . Like about ten percent of the women of her generation, both sisters never married. As was customary in their circles at the time, they often traveled in the company of other women. Claribel's pursuit of a medical college degree was seen as unlady-like in her social circles . They were considered eccentrics .

However, the sisters' purchases were more inspired by romantic charity than the systematic effort to build up an art collection. Some portraits and other paintings they only acquired to decorate the walls of their apartments down to the last corner. It was only after Claribel's early death from pneumonia that Etta sought professional help from art dealers. Claribel had her collection Etta left in her will, coupled with the provision that the collection eventually Baltimore Museum of Art to pass, if the mind should the appreciation of modern art in Baltimore improve.

Cone Collection

The Cone Collection includes pieces by world-famous artists: Henri Matisse ' Blue Nude (1907) and Large Reclining Nude (1935), Paul Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from the Bibémus Quarry (c. 1897), Paul Gauguin's Vahine no te vi (Woman of the Mango) (1892), and Pablo Picasso 's Mother and Child (1922). The Cone sisters collected Matisse throughout his career and thus acquired 42 of his oil paintings, 18 sculptures, 36 drawings, 155 prints, and seven books he illustrated, as well as 250 drawings, prints and copperplate plates for Matisse's first illustrated book Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé . Other well-known works by Matisse in the collection include Woman in a Turban (Lorette) (1917), Seated Odalisque, Left Knee Bent, Ornamental Background and Checkerboard (1928), and Interior, Flowers and Parakeets (1924). The total of 500 works by Matisse in the Cone Collection form the world's largest and most representative group of works by the artist.

The sisters also acquired many of Picasso's works. These include 114 of his prints and drawings from his early years in Barcelona and from his Pink Period (1905–1906) in Paris.

They also bought works of art by American artists, more than 1,000 prints, books, and drawings. Another part of their collection included textiles, jewelry, furniture and handicrafts. They not only acquired pieces from Europe and Asia, but also Egyptian sculptures, oriental textiles, Indian metal objects, French jewelry from the 18th century, Japanese prints and African sculptures.

After Etta Cone's death in 1949, the collection was donated to the Baltimore Museum of Art. His cone wing shows over 3000 pieces. The estimated value of the entire collection is now $ 1 billion. 

Other collections

Part of the sisters' art collection, including many lithographs and bronzes by Matisse, is in the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro , which once housed the family textile mills that played a major role in the history of the place and how it came into being of the family fortune.

Laura Cone, b. Weil, Etta's sister-in-law, was a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and asked Etta for a donation to open the museum in 1942. In her will of May 18, 1949, Etta left the museum 67 prints of Matisse and six of his bronze sculptures as well a large number of prints and drawings, including by Picasso, Félix Vallotton , Raoul Dufy and John D. Graham .

Archive sources

• The Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art , 2001, Cone Archives, Baltimore Museum of Art.
• Liza Kirwin: Correspondence of Claribel and Etta Cone. In: Archives of American Art Journal. V . Volume 27, No. 2, 1987, p. 34.
• Probate inventory of Etta Cone . Maryland State Archives, Baltimore City, Register of Wills - serial # 52036, folio # 14, Book # 308.
• Probate inventory Claribel Cone . Maryland State Archives, Baltimore City, Register of Wills - serial # 10225, folio # 315, Book # 257.
• Will of Etta Cone . May 18, 1949, Maryland State Archives, Baltimore City, Register of Wills - serial # 52036, folio # 35, Book # 233, CR 232, case # 690, p. 35
• Will of Dr. Claribel Cone . April 25, 1929, Maryland State Archives, Baltimore City, Register of Wills - serial # 10225, folio # 531, Book # 165, Case # 447, p. 61.
• Dr. Claribel Cone, A Remarkable Woman . April 8, 1911, The Baltimore Evening Sun, interview available on microfilm at the library at Morgan State University , and University of Maryland, Baltimore County , and University of Maryland, College Park .

literature

• Barbara Pollack: The Collectors. Dr. Claribel and Miss Etta Cone. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis 1962.
• Mary Gabriel: The Art of Acquiring. A Portrait of Etta & Claribel Cone. Bancroft Press, Baltimore 2002, ISBN 1-890862-06-1
• Eugene F. Cordell: Medical Annals of Maryland. Medical and Surgical Society of Maryland, Baltimore 1903.
• Harold J. Abrahams: Extinct Medical Schools of Baltimore, Maryland. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore 1969.
• Brenda Richardson and William C. Ameringer: Dr. Claribel and Miss Etta . Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore 1985, ISBN 0-912298-58-8
• Edward T. Cone: The Miss Etta Cones, The Steins, and M'sieu Matisse: A Memoir. In: The American Scholar . Summer 1973, Volume 42, No. 3) pp. 441-460.
• Philip T. Noblitt: A Mansion in the Mountains. The Story of Moses and Bertha Cone and their Blowing Rock Manor . Parkway Publishers, 1996, ISBN 1-887905-02-2
• Ellen B. Hirschland: The Cone Sisters and the Stein Family. Four Americans in Paris: The Collections of Gertrude Stein and her Family. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1970.

Web links

• Baltimore Museum of Art: Cone Collection (English)
• Finding aid of the Etta Cone correspondence at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Inside the Cone Collection: Baltimore Sisters Amassed A Treasure Trove Of Art
2. ↑ ^{a b} The Etta Cone Letters, 1927–1949 ( Memento of the original from July 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Entry at rootsweb.com
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Edward Cone (great-great-nephew): Shirtsleeves to Matisses . In: Forbes Magazine 1999
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} The Claribel and Etta Cone Collection ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ ^{a b} Cone Sisters - Maryland State Archives ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ^ ^{A b} Jack Flam: Matisse in the Cone Collection - The Poetics of Vision . ( ISBN 0-912298-73-1 )
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e} ART; The Cone Sisters: Shoppers or Connoisseurs?
9. ↑ Cone Collection (Baltimore Museum of Art)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ The Baltimore Museum of Art - Reflections of Sea and Light ( Memento of the original dated February 14, 2012) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ Dr Claribel & Miss Etta: The Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
12. ↑ Women's Network  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Johns Hopkins University