La bordadora. UPDATE: This made $4,140,000 and was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
La Bordadora (The Embroiderer), a rediscovered masterpiece by Diego Rivera, comes up at Christie’s in New York on March 11. Painted in 1928 as part of the nation building project that fuelled Rivera’s return to Mexico in the 1920s it pays homage to folk and craft based practices and the role of Indigenous women in preserving these traditions. Known only through black and white photographs taken shortly after it was painted La Bordadora was discovered to have been in the same American family collection since the 1920’s. It is estimated at $700,000-$900,000 (€620,900-€798,535). Last November Frida Kahlo’s Diego y yo (Diego and I) sold in New York for $34.9 million (€30,967,962), a record for a work of Latin American art. The previous record of $9.76 million (€8.65 million) was set by Diego Rivera with whom Kahlo had a decades long tumultuous relationship.
