FRANKO, Mrs Nahan (Cornelia Ruppert)

A picture of this recently deceased lady, born Cornelia Anna Ruppert, was painted posthumously in 1897, according to an undated German-language cutting (artist’s papers). 

She was born on June 21, 1865, the sister of Colonel Jacob Ruppert, beer brewer and congressman and owner of the New York Yankees 1913-1939. She married Nahan Franko on March 7, 1895, and died on March 12, 1896.  Her husband was born in New Orleans on July 23, 1861 and died in 1930. He was the first American conductor at the Metropolitan Opera House, when he conducted Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro there on November 30, 1904.  On the 150th anniversary of Mozart’s birth on January 27, 1906 he conducted Don Giovanni.