A PENDANT 
of old gold with emeralds atid uncut sap¬ 
phires. A Mexican opal in the center. 
AN 
AMERICAN 
DESIGNER 
OF 
JEWELRY 
By 
OLIVER COLEMAN 
A PENDANT 
of ‘ very blue moonstones used with green , 
red and white enamel. 
I N a recent foreign publication on “Jewelry 
and Fans,” the work of contemporary 
European designers was treated most exhaust¬ 
ively, but no mention was made of America, 
and one looked in vain for the American 
section. Was this because a publication 
covering the work of such minor countries 
as that of Belgium, Sweden and Denmark, 
left no room for anything concerning the 
lusty youngster across the water, or was it 
by implication a charge that nothing worthy 
of European note was being done in the 
United States? It is true one must con¬ 
fess that the general standard of jewelry in 
America is based on a lower ideal than that 
which would be indicated by the examples il¬ 
lustrated in the publication in question. The 
American standard is very generally one of 
cost, and even then, not so much one of the 
cost of the tout ensemble , but still more mun¬ 
danely one of cost of raw 
material : cost of the 
jewels. The result in¬ 
evitably must be a sacri¬ 
fice of all other attri¬ 
butes of design and 
beauty to that setting 
which will best bring 
out the perfectness and 
brilliancy of the gems 
themselves, and let us 
confess with sorrow the 
consequential infer¬ 
ence of costliness. 
“Why,” ask these people, “shall we pay 
an enormous sum for a diamond of purest 
water, and then set it in such a way that one 
of half the cost will make equally as good an 
appearance? That is a waste of good money, 
a poor investment.” And the result of such 
reasoning is the commercial crown setting, 
costing perhaps two dollars and a half, and 
holding in its ordinary embrace a ruby worth 
possibly five hundred dollars. Such pieces 
are not jewelry at all, they are simply gems, 
or a collection of gems, held together in a 
safe and insignificant receptacle, in which 
design or art in any form is totally lacking. 
But a nation which, with all its new¬ 
ness and crudeness, has produced artists 
like Whistler and Sargent with the brush, 
and like Louis Tiffany and La Large 
with glass, must not be judged by their 
lowest performance, nor even by their 
average performance, 
and there is undoubt¬ 
edly an undercurrent 
in America today of 
enthusiastic appreci¬ 
ation of true art in 
all its forms, — an 
enthusiasm so broad 
and so intense that it 
cannot fail to eventually 
develop into a great 
creative activity with 
which the world will do 
well to reckon. 
A BROOCH DESIGNED AND MADE BY 
MRS. WILLIAM H. KLAPP 
A ‘very heavy old gold piece pierced and set with three deep 
colored Siberian amethysts , blue by day and red by gas-light. 
