DRAGONETTE, Jessica (1944)
Description:
Oval portrait, labelled ‘Angelica’, signed and dated 1944.
Location:
Present Whereabouts Unknown.
Provenance:
Sold artist’s studio sale, Plaza Art Galleries, 9-11, East 59th Street, New York, 24 & 25 November, 1947, Sale No. 2809, Lot 144 (Fetched $5.00 – marked copy in Frick Art Reference Library).
Jessica Valentina Dragonette was born February 14, 1900, and died March 18th, 1980, was a popular radio soprano before and during World War II. She married executive Nicholas Meredith Turner in 1947.
Muller-Ury met Jessica Dragonette in 1940 through the auspices of Archbishop Spellman, Martin Conboy (Lord Duveen’s New York attorney) and her sister Nadea Loftus, after singing at the Catholic Radio Hour tenth anniversary broadcast. He painted several portraits of her in the 1940s. She acquired numerous pictures by him from his estate in 1947.
Bibliography
Jessica Dragonette, Faith is a Song, (New York, 1951), pp. 239-241, 243-244, and 300-301.
