Cone sisters

American art collectors

Claribel Cone (1864–1929) and Etta Cone (1870–1949), collectively known as the Cone sisters, were active as American art collectors, world travelers, and socialites during the first part of the 20th century. Claribel trained as a physician and Etta as a pianist. Their social circle included Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein. They gathered one of the best known private collections of modern art in the United States at their Baltimore apartments, and the collection now makes up a wing of the Baltimore 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 were German Jewish immigrants. Herman, who had immigrated from Altenstadt in Bavaria (South of Ulm), anglicized his last name (changing it from "Kahn" to "Cone") almost immediately upon arrival in the United States in 1845. Until 1871, the family lived in Jonesboro, Tennessee, where they had a successful grocery business. Claribel and Etta were born in Tennessee. Claribel, the fifth child in the family of thirteen children,

The family then moved to Baltimore, Maryland. The eldest Cone brothers, Moses and Ceasar, later moved permanently to Greensboro, North Carolina. They established a textile manufacturing business named the Proximity Manufacturing Company (later known as Cone Mills Corporation, now a unit of International 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. Etta was a pianist and managed the family household affairs. The sisters traveled to Europe together yearly on long trips beginning in 1901. Etta began purchasing art in 1898, when she was given $300 by a brother to decorate the family home. The relationship the Cone sisters developed with Matisse was so close he referred to them as "my two Baltimore ladies." Matisse once did a sketch of Etta. Etta made purchases to help upcoming artists like Matisse, Picasso, and students of the Maryland 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. Claribel acquired much more experimental grade works. She purchased Matisse's Blue Nude for 120,760 francs and Paul Cézanne's mountain painting Mont 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. The Cone sisters had a special interest in Matisse's Nice period. The sisters' particular social contacts produced an advantage from which they could compile a world renowned art collection. The Cone sisters built up a large collection of paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. Examples of the Cone lace pieces include a Chantilly lace fan, a Point de France flounce, 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 the Baltimore 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 the Cone 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, including over 1000 American prints, illustrated books, and drawings. Among these were cloth goods, costume jewelry, tables, chairs, and cabinets. The Cone sisters also acquired many of Picasso's works, and among these were 114 prints and drawings from his early years in Barcelona and from his Rose period (1905–1906) in Paris. Etta died on August 31, 1949. The Cone sisters were buried at Baltimore's Druid Ridge Cemetery in an area called Hickory Knoll. The only word on their ten by ten family mausoleum is "Cone". Architect James O. Olney designed the Tennessee marble mausoleum, which is flanked by two Roman style columns of Vermont granite and has two age darkened bronze doors in front.