Etta Cone was an American art collector and an associate of her sister Claribel Cone, who was likewise a collector of works of art.
Background
Etta Cone was born on November 30, 1870 in Jonesboro, Tennessee, United States. She was the third daughter and the ninth of the thirteen children of Herman Cone (né Kahn) and Helen (Guggenheimer) Cone. Claribel was the second daughter and fifth child; Moses Herman Cone, merchant and textile manufacturer, was a brother. Their father, born in 1828 to a pious Jewish family in Altenstadt on the Iller, Bavaria, emigrated to America in 1846 and settled in Jonesboro, where by the mid-1850's he had established himself as a successful merchant. His wife, born in Hürben, Württemberg, Germany, in 1838, had emigrated as a child to Virginia, settling with her family in Gilmores Mill near Natural Bridge. The couple were married in 1856, lived for a time in Jonesboro, where Claribel was born, and moved to Baltimore in 1870 just before Etta's birth there. Herman Cone established a wholesale cigar and grocery business and took his sons into the firm. The two eldest brothers, originally drummers for the family enterprise, acquired textile mills in the South and eventually became the leading producers of denim, corduroy, and flannelette. As the business prospered, they provided comfortable, steady incomes for Claribel and Etta.
Education
Etta's formal education ended with her graduation from high school belies the fact that she remained a student with lifelong pursuits in the study of art history and piano.
Career
In 1898, commissioned to decorate the family's Victorian-style parlor, she acquired five paintings by Theodore Robinson, an American who worked in the French Impressionist style. She thereby showed an early propensity for contemporary painting and began the collection which was to be the principal endeavor of her life. A strong influence on the Cones' collecting was their friendship with Gertrude Stein and her family, which began when Gertrude and her brother Leo settled in Baltimore in 1892. Through the next four decades, both in the United States and in Europe, the Cones and Steins spent much time together. During the winter of 1905-1906, when Etta was living in Paris in the same house as Gertrude's brother Michael and his wife and was typing Gertrude's novel Three Lives, the Steins introduced her to their new friends Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, from whom first Etta and later Claribel purchased drawings and paintings at minimal cost. They remained close friends with Matisse, whose works form the core of the art collection which they gradually accumulated. The sisters also began collecting Japanese prints and various kinds of decorative art objects, such as textiles, laces, and jewelry, during their sojourns in Paris and on a trip around the world in 1906-1907. After World War I, with Claribel's professional medical career at an end and with the knowledge that they were now well-to-do, the Cone sisters began making annual trips to Europe and became more active as collectors. They bought antique furniture and many paintings from the Stein family in Paris. Claribel also purchased from art dealers and auction houses such major works as Cézanne's "Mont Ste-Victoire Seen from Bibémus Quarry, " Matisse's then controversial "Blue Nude" of 1907, and Van Gogh's "Shoes. " Etta, whose taste was less bold, meanwhile acquired Cézanne's "Bathers, " Renoir's gentle "Washer-women, " and numerous colorful Matisse oil paintings. They arranged their treasures in their apartments in Baltimore, filling the rooms almost to overflowing, yet avoiding a feeling of clutter by the combined warmth of the vivid colors of the paintings, rugs, and fabrics and the constant abundance of fresh flowers. The sisters' stately appearance was enhanced by their long black Victorian clothing, adorned with precious old lace, Renaissance jewelry, and exotic Oriental shawls. Claribel, despite her imperious manner, emanated charm and charisma and always seemed to dominate those around her, whereas Etta, though dignified, kindly, intelligent, and especially well-informed, was more retiring. They participated in the cultural life of Baltimore but were considered eccentric by local society not only for their unconventional clothing but even more for their independent judgment and courage in amassing a collection of modern art long before the community in general had any understanding of their avant-garde taste. Claribel died of pneumonia and cardiac insufficiency in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1929. According to the terms of her will, her collection was left to Etta to be given to the art museum in the city which they had always considered home if "the spirit of appreciation of modern art in Baltimore becomes improved. " In subsequent years, Etta strengthened the collection by purchasing important paintings by Corot, Manet, and Gauguin, as well as Picasso's 1922 "Mother and Child. " She bought many works of Matisse directly from the artist, augmented her lace and textile collections, and expanded the already considerable art library that she and her sister had assembled. Ultimately the art collection included sixteen paintings and thirty-eight drawings by Picasso, mostly of his pink and blue periods. The Cones' group of Matisses, which includes forty-three paintings, more than a hundred drawings, and eighteen pieces of sculpture, probably constitutes the most comprehensive collection of the artist's work anywhere. Etta Cone, who survived her sister by twenty years, died of a coronary occlusion in Blowing Rock in 1949. Both were buried in a family mausoleum in Druid Ridge Cemetery, Pikesville. In accordance with Claribel's suggestion, Etta bequeathed their joint collection to the Baltimore Museum of Art.