Lot 434: Nancy Ford Cones, 2 Framed Platinum Prints

Nancy Ford Cones (American, 1869-1962), two photographic prints depicting a model in Classical Greek style dress and playing a lyre in a moody landscape background. Titled “Music on the Shore” and “Playing the Lyre” on labels en verso from the Walt Burton Galleries, with numbers (81-121 and 81-128) and additional information. Reprinted in 1981 and initialed en verso by Margaret Cones, the model and the artist’s daughter. Each measuring 3″ x 4″ and matted and framed together in a contemporary black frame, under plexiglass. Note: Nancy Ford Cones (1869-1962) was an early photographer whose often whimsical images were used in the advertising campaigns of Eastman Kodak, Bausch & Lomb and other camera firms during the 1910s and 1920s. In 1905, her “Threading the Needle or Helping Grandmother Sew,” a gelatin silver print, placed second in a Kodak competition, behind Edward Steichen and before Alfred Stieglitz. Most of her photographs depicted family and friends on her Loveland, Ohio farm. Although recognized during her lifetime, she ceased working after her the death of her husband and collaborator/printer James in 1939, and her work was largely forgotten until a series of recent retrospectives, including the Taft Museum’s “Craft and Camera: the Art of Nancy Ford Combs” in 2022. Her work is in the collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Dayton Art Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her daughter Margaret, a frequent model in the photographs, authorized the release of a limited number of prints in 1981 through the Walt Burton Galleries, including these two images.

PROVENANCE: Private Middle Tennessee collection.

CONDITION: Excellent condition.