Etta and Claribel Cone were two of the thirteen children of Jewish immigrants Henry and Helen Cone. The Cone family was successful in the grocery and textile industries. Raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Claribel (1864-1929) was trained as a medical doctor and researcher and Etta (1870-1949) was an accomplished pianist and managed the family household. In 1898, Etta was tasked with redecorating the family's parlor and she purchased five paintings by American Impressionist Theodore Robinson. This was the beginning of a lifetime of art collecting. The Cone sisters established a renowned collection of Modern Art when it was not widely known. As internationally travelled socialites, Etta and Claribel were friends or acquaintences with many artists and authors, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo.

The majority of the Cone sisters' art collection, about 3000 works, was eventually given to the Baltimore Art Museum. There is a second, much smaller and lesser known collection that was given to the Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro. Moses Cone, brother of Claribel and Etta, built a vacation home in North Carolina at Blowing Rock, which was also near many of the Cone family's textile mills in the south. Encouraged by her sister-in-law Laura, wife of brother Julius and a loyal alumna of Woman's College (now UNCG), Etta Cone left sixty-seven Matisse prints and six Matisse bronzes as well as a large number of modern prints and drawings, including works by Pablo Picasso, Felix Vallaton, Raoul Dufy and John Graham.