Promotional portfolio for Spanish Jeweler Jaoquin Berao, with seven striking Mondigliani-like portraits of women wearing Berao pieces

Madrid, 1989. Portfolio, glossy card stock. Near Fine. This is a most unusual jewelry promotion, and while it is more modern than almost all of the ephemera and trade-related items we have in our stock, its singular artistry makes it something we are proud to have on offer. The portraits, each 31 by 22, have deliberately roughed, or uneven, edges. The palette employed is fleshy browns and oranges, with turquoise and silver eyes and touches of red and green providing a contrast. We assume a printing process was somehow employed, but the portraits come off as original watercolors. Berao's bold modernistic designs accessorize each of these women, a few, vaguely conjuring up Ava Gardner from "The Barefoot Contessa", but one would not know from the portraits themselves that these were prepared as part of a jewelry production. Rather, Berao is clearly promoting his jewelry by associating with an idealized strong, glamorous woman, one who is herself a work of art. Berao himself was born in 1945 and is still active, with his flagship store in Madrid and branches in Paris, Milan, Ibiza and Barcelona. The portraits have a tissue wrapping, and these slip into a fold in a portfolio of glossy card.