A Frida Kahlo self-portrait measuring 5cm tall is on sale at Art Basel Miami Beach
09 December 2025
Out of the artist's 55 known self-portraits, "Autorretrato en miniatura" (Miniature self-portrait",about 1938) is the smallest one.
Unsold at Sotheby's New York in 2011 despite an estimate of between $800,000 and $1.2 million, it was purchased by gallery owner Rowland Weinstein shortly after the auction. Even further back, in 2000, it had changed hands for £150,000. Today, its value reflects a completely different reality: the Kahlo market is booming, as demonstrated last November by the historic record for a female artist, the £38.7 million achieved by El sueño (La cama) (1940) at Sotheby's.
While the front depicts the artist wearing her signature updo of red flowers and braids, the reverse of the canvas tells a more personal tale. It is dedicated to one of Kahlo's lovers, the Catalan poet José Bartoli, with whom she had a passionate affair during the last ten years of her life. The inscription reads "Para Bartoli con amor, Mara" (to Bartoli with love, Mara).
According to Rowland Weinstein "Kahlo wrote to Bartoli that she painted this work small enough that he could carry her around in his pocket." To avoid being discovered by her husband, the artist Diego Rivera, she signed the painting "Mara," a shortened version of Bartoli's name for her, "maravillosa" (marvellous).
Read here the complete article by Theartnewspaper website.
Images at the link below - Weinstein Gallery website.
