Sotheby's will offer Frida Kahlo's recently rediscovered Nina Con Collar (1929) in New York on November 22.

The piece will come to auction with a valuation of $1.2m-1.5m.

Frida Kahlo's husband, Diego Rivera, gave this painting to her assistant after her death

In 1955, after Kahlo's death, her husband Diego Rivera gave Nina Con Collar to an assistant who had helped out in her studio.

While experts were aware of its existence, it has not been seen in public for many years.

1929, the year the work was painted, was a significant one in Kahlo's life and career.

She married Rivera and the couple moved to the city of Cuernavaca, where she began to produce the folk art inspired paintings that made her one of the biggest stars of the art world.  

Nina Con Collar is a tentative step in this direction.

Axel Stein, Sotheby's head of Latin American art, comments: "I have known Nina Con Collar since 1988 when I saw the black and white photograph in the newly published catalogue raisonne.

"I never imagined it would surface and turn out to be such a beautiful and warm painting."

The lot has a good chance of selling for well over estimate, as very few significant Frida Kahlo paintings have ever sold at auction.

Earlier this year her Two Nudes made a record $8m.

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