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Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird

Oil on canvas by Frida Kahlo (1940). Kahlo portrays herself with a crown of thorns necklace that draws blood, while a dead hummingbird hangs from it, a black cat perches on her shoulder, and a monkey tugs at the thorns. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin.

Scholarly Significance

Kahlo's iconic thorn necklace self-portrait; rich iconographic content with Christian Passion symbolism and animal symbolism.

Notes

  • ·Painted in 1940, the year Kahlo and Rivera's divorce was finalized (though they remarried in December 1940).
  • ·One of the most symbolically dense of all Kahlo's self-portraits.
  • ·Kahlo gave the painting to her friend and lover Nickolas Muray, who preserved it.
  • ·The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin, holds one of the significant Kahlo collections outside Mexico.
  • ·The spider monkey was Kahlo's actual pet (named 'Fulang-Chang'); appears in several self-portraits.
  • ·The hummingbird (colibrí) in Mexican tradition: specifically brings luck in love when worn as an amulet — here inverted in death.