Source: WTL research files.
Painting: "Autorretrato 'The Frame'" painted on an aluminum board (1938). The flowers and the birds are painted on crystal and are added as a collage to the painting. The great French art museum, Le Louvre, bought this painting; it was the first canvas by a Mexican artist ever shown at the Louvre.
Comments: In 1933, Frida Kahlo has another miscarriage, and she has an operation on her right foot, from which two toes are amputated. In 1936, she has another operation on her right foot, and she declares her support for the democratic (i.e., Republican) forces at the beginnig of the Spanish Civil War. The next year, Leon Trotski and his wife Natalia Sedova arrive in Mexico, and Frida opens her house, the famous Casa Azul, in Coyoacán to them. In 1938, the French Surrealist André Breton arrives in Mexico, where he lives in Guadalupe Marín's home (Rivera's ex-wife). In New York, Frida has an affair with the American photographer Nickolas Muray.
Latin American Humanities Question: What is specifically Mexican about the composition of this painting and its constituent elements?

To see a series of photographs of Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul, click on the following image: