The Provenance of a Resemblance

A new Hermès bracelet designed from Jonathan Burton’s Mystère au 24 looks unexpectedly familiar. Decades earlier, Hermès enamel jewellery was being made in Vienna by Michaela Frey, the workshop that would become Freywille.

English illustrator Jonathan Burton’s Mystère au 24 began as a 90 x 90 cm silk scarf for Hermès. Set inside 24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the illustration stages a small mystery through an abandoned telephone, an overturned chair, a missing shoe, animals occupying the room and clues distributed throughout the composition. Burton also embedded references to the number 24 into the scene, including 24 cat paw prints.

Jonathan Burton, Mystère au 24 for Hermès. The design began as a 90 x 90 cm silk square before being reworked for printed-enamel objects.

The image has since moved beyond silk. Hermès adapted Mystère au 24 for printed-enamel jewellery, including versions of its Clic H and wider Clic Clac H bracelets. On these objects, Burton’s drawing wraps around a rigid band and meets the metal H closure rather than remaining within the four edges of a scarf. Hermès describes the design as having been reinterpreted specifically for its printed-enamel models.

The result is difficult to look at without thinking of Freywille. Not because Freywille invented the enamel bangle, but because this particular resemblance has a history.

Hermès Mystère au 24 Clic H bracelet, with Jonathan Burton’s illustration adapted to the circumference and clasp of the enamel bangle.

Vienna, 1951

Artist Michaela Frey founded the Wiener Emailmanufaktur in Vienna in 1951. The workshop initially produced hand-painted enamel objects and decorative accessories before expanding further into jewellery. During the 1960s and 1970s, its work reached international retailers including Harrods, while collaborations with Yves Saint Laurent and Hermès brought the Viennese manufacturer into the orbit of major luxury houses.

Freywille bracelet from the Hommage à Hundertwasser collection, translating the artist’s architectural forms and saturated colours into enamel jewellery.

The company later became Freywille. Under Friedrich Wille and Simone Grünberger-Wille in the 1980s, enamel jewellery developed into the intensely coloured, image-led language now associated with the house. In the following decade, its Hommage collections extended that approach through authorised interpretations of artists including Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt and Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

Hermès was also one of the companies that worked directly with the Viennese manufacturer.

A turquoise Hermès enamel bangle dated 1994/95, catalogued by Neumeister as produced by Michaela Frey, Vienna for Hermès.

Made for Hermès

A Hermès bracelet dated 1994/95 in the archive of Munich auction house Neumeister provides a particularly clear record. The piece is described as metal enamelled in powder technique and, more unusually, as “Produced by Michaela Frey, Vienna for Hermès.”

The same catalogue entry notes that motifs used for Hermès enamel bangles were often derived from the house’s silk scarves. This places the Viennese workshop not only behind the manufacture of at least some Hermès enamel jewellery, but also within the house’s practice of transferring images from silk to enamel.

Freywille Diva, from the Hommage à Gustav Klimt collection, inspired by Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

A wide band of colour, polished metal borders and a continuous illustrated surface can now read immediately as part of Freywille’s visual identity. Yet at least some Hermès bracelets working with the same materials and format were once produced by Michaela Frey’s Austrian workshop.

Hermès says Burton reinterpreted Mystère au 24 specifically for its printed-enamel models rather than simply reproducing the scarf at a smaller scale. Burton’s bracelet brings that older movement from silk to enamel into the present.

A Michaela Frey enamel bangle made for Hermès, part of the documented manufacturing relationship between the Paris maison and the Viennese workshop.

What Remains

The present-day Mystère au 24 bracelets are made in France, so the historical connection with Michaela Frey doesn't represent a continuing manufacturing relationship. What remains is a format Hermès has continued to revisit across different designs. Mystère au 24 is one recent example among many.

Hermès Mystère au 24 enamel bangle. Burton’s interior scene is transferred from silk to a continuous curved surface, where the image is read gradually around the wrist.

The object is new. The visual memory it carries is not.

Opening image: Jonathan Burton’s Mystère au 24 alongside enamel bracelets that trace an older connection between Hermès and the Viennese workshop founded by Michaela Frey.