House and Garden 
to the point of my ar¬ 
ticle,—is not jewelry 
designed to wear ? Is 
it designed to be de¬ 
signed, to exhibit the 
artist’s fancy and ver¬ 
satility, or is it de¬ 
signed to form part of 
a costume, to blend 
and harmonize with a 
beautiful gown and 
by its brilliancy and 
color*1add beauty to a 
beautiful woman ? 
If we acknowledge 
the debt of the world to France in respect 
to her influence on painting, we may yet 
doubt her preeminent position in domestic 
architecture, and some of the lesser arts, and 
in my particular circle it is a well understood 
expression of deprecation to say any small 
article is “Frenchy,” meaning meretricious 
and frivolous. The Italians were the pre¬ 
eminent designers of jewelry in the Renais¬ 
sance period and they designed to bedeck 
harmoniously their beautiful women with 
jewelry appropriate in color and form to the 
woman and her costume, and not to cover 
her with variations of her own nude form. 
Mrs. Klapp believes, then, in jewelry that 
can be worn, and further in jewelry that may 
be worn appropriately. She has a clear real¬ 
ization of conventions. Most conventions 
are based on sound reasoning, the popular 
opinion in America to the contrary notwith¬ 
standing. For example, convention decrees 
that diamonds may not be worn with a shirt 
waist. This is unquestionably a wise and 
philosophical decree 
of convention. In 
obedience to it, Mrs. 
Klapp has designed 
many buckles, 
brooches and stick¬ 
pins of the lesser 
jewels, set in silver; 
for example, an ame¬ 
thyst set in silver, or 
a piece of lapis-lazuli 
in silver or a silver 
base with conven¬ 
tional figures in 
enamel; any of these 
will be appropriate to 
a morning gown of 
percale, and offend 
the taste of no one. 
It was, in fact, her 
interest in the semi¬ 
precious stones that 
first led her to design 
jewelry at all. 
Mrs. Klapp is a 
colorist. She is in 
love with fine, strong, 
rich color and has ex¬ 
perimented with it in 
her house and in her 
dress for years. It was because many of the 
semi-precious stones have such a variety and 
complexity of color that she was first drawn 
to study and use them. Her first attempts 
at design were on pieces for herself and gifts 
for friends, until gradually as her ideas mul¬ 
tiplied and her powers expanded she became 
an artist by profession. She early learned, 
however, that no matter what the beauty of 
design and color, people who have been 
brought up to pay 95 per cent, for the jewel 
and 5 per cent, for the setting were very 
much astonished when they were asked to 
pay 60 per cent, for setting and 40 per cent, 
or less for the gem, and so through this in¬ 
fluence, in a measure, and through her 
expanding opportunities, she now designs 
many pieces in which the most precious jew¬ 
els are employed but never without being 
subordinated to the setting and part of a 
homogeneous whole. She does not execute 
the pieces herself; she has, however, her 
own shop where men work directly under 
her own eye, and 
where she accurately 
controls every detail, 
the contour of every 
line, and the weight of 
every piece of metal. 
As before stated, 
her cardinal principle 
is fitness and use. In 
consequence she 
shows great versatil¬ 
ity, some of her pieces 
having traces of Span¬ 
ish, Russian or En¬ 
glish influences. 
A GOLD COMB SET WITH CARVED CORAL ROSES 
A SIDE COMB WITH DEEP PINK ALMANDINES 
SET IN GOLD 
