Description:Frontal seated portrait of Mrs. Cole in lace evening gown with a high collar. Wearing a flowing purple wrap lined in a lighter purple satin. Her white hair is piled high on top of head.
History:Mrs. Cole presented to the University a bronze bust of her husband. When the bust was destroyed in the 1905 fire which gutted Vanderbilt's Main Building, she replaced it with a marble bust which is housed today in Kirkland Hall where her portrait also hangs.
Notes:Edmund W. Cole and Anna Russell were married in in 1872 in Augusta, GA (her home) by Bishop Holland McTyeire, who was instrumental in the Founding of Vanderbilt University. She and her husband founded the Randal Cole Industrial School which later became the Tennessee Industrial School. They also became generous supporters of Vanderbilt. Among their many contributions, they established in 1892 in the Divinty School the Cole Lecturship which continues to the present.
