Frida Kahlo’s painting “Diego y Yo” sold for $34.9 million on Tuesday, breaking records to become the most expensive piece by a Latin American artist to be sold at auction.
The painting, from 1949, was the last “bust” self-portrait the legendary Mexican artist made before she died in 1954 at age 47, according to Sotheby’s. It depicts Kahlo with a small image of her husband, artist Diego Rivera, on her forehead and three tears rolling down her cheeks.
The Tuesday sale broke the previous record for publicly sold Latin American art — held by Rivera for a painting of his sold for $9.8 million at a Christie’s auction in 2018, reported NPR.
Kahlo’s art often depicted the difficulties of her tumultuous marriage with Rivera, as well as her own health struggles, after she endured multiple arduous surgeries following a bus accident at age 18.
Kahlo’s record-breaking painting was bought by Eduardo F. Costantini, founder of Malba, the famed Latin American art museum in Buenos Aires.
Kahlo’s self-portrait “Diego y Yo” made history once before, in 1990, when it sold for $1.4 million, making Kahlo the first Latin American artist to have a piece go for over $1 million at auction.