Rare Plique a Jour Pendant, Hemmerle

Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2018, Hemmerle is a family-run, fourth-generation jewelry house that is at the forefront of elegant design. Each of the house’s handmade rings, earrings and other accessories is unique and an original work of wearable art.

Hemmerle has a distinguished history of crafting medals for Bavarian royalty and papal objects for the Vatican. Today, this luxury brand’s cutting-edge modern and Art Nouveau jewelry sees a merging of rare and precious gemstones with unconventional materials like aluminum, copper, and aged wood. Hemmerle produces approximately 200 pieces each year, and their master jewelers can spend 500 hours on a single creation.

Hemmerle was founded in Munich in 1893. Today Christian Hermmerle and his wife, Yasmin, are at the helm of this fine jewelry house and work alongside Christian’s parents, Stefan and Sylveli. 

Hemmerle’s current design vision began in the 1990s with a client who shunned flashy gems and preferred to wear early 19th-century Berlin iron jewelry. Finding inspiration in the client’s preferred accessories, Stefan Hemmerle set a diamond in an iron band — this unlikely combination of working with a common metal and a precious stone help set in motion the new design direction for the firm.

Hemmerle has been involved in many exhibitions over the last two centuries, including the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris and the American Museum of Natural History’s “Beautiful Creatures” exhibit. 

“The objects that they incorporate into their one-of-a-kind, beautiful jewelry — you can’t look at a Hemmerle piece and not have your mind expand as to what jewelry can be,” author and internationally renowned jewelry expert Stellene Volandes tells Introspective of the firm. “It’s all forward-looking and yet all historic at the same time. A lot of jewelry is like that.”

Hemmerle pieces are held in the collections of many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Smithsonian Design Museum NYC and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

On 1stDibs, find Hemmerle earrings, necklaces, brooches and more.