by
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Page created on March 2, 2018 / Page updated on October 6, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000

Introduction

Seated Girl with Duck, also known as Niña sentada con pato, presents a young child in a close, quiet interior. A historic photograph reportedly shows a signed image dated 1928, while the surviving painting discussed by scholars is unsigned and has prompted doubts about its attribution. The distinction matters: we can examine the composition and its recorded history without treating every claim about the present physical object as settled. [1] [2]

The child holds a duck-like toy, but the portrait offers no documented explanation of who she was or what the toy meant to Kahlo. A later recollection attributed to Kahlo names “Rosita,” and an art-historical account follows a painting by that name through a flea-market discovery and a 1981 auction. Those accounts provide a path into the work, though they do not replace an original catalogue, technical examination or the historic photograph itself. [1]

At a Glance

  • Work: Seated Girl with Duck; the Spanish title is Niña sentada con pato. [1] [2]
  • Attribution: Associated with Frida Kahlo, with scholarly doubts recorded about the surviving unsigned painting. [1] [2]
  • Date: A historic signed photograph is reported to show 1928; the 1981 auction lot was catalogued circa 1929. [1] [2]
  • Subject: A short-haired child in blue clothing, seated indoors with a duck-like toy. [2]
  • Recorded history: A reported gift to Kahlo’s sister Matilde, a later acquisition by Salomón Hale, and a 1981 New York sale. [1]
  • Present status: A scholar placed the unsigned painting in a private Mexican collection in 2012; current ownership and display are unverified. [2]

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. A Child in a Still Interior
  3. What “Rosita” Can—and Cannot—Tell Us
  4. A Photograph, an Unsigned Painting and Two Dates
  5. The 1981 Sale and the Limits of a Provenance
  6. An Early Portrait in a Longer Conversation
  7. Related Reading

A Child in a Still Interior

The girl faces outward from a brown chair, wearing dark-blue overalls over a pale blue blouse. Her short hair frames a direct gaze, while the small duck-like object rests within her hands near her lap. Brown boots and closely drawn lower edges make the seated figure fill much of the tall picture. [2]

The room does not open into a landscape. A yellow chair appears on one side of the child's head and a table on the other, separated rather than arranged into a busy domestic scene. The furniture establishes an interior but does not reveal whose home this was, whether the girl sat there for Kahlo, or whether the toy belonged to her. [2]

Laura Rodrigues Noehles, writing in Portuguese in 2012, makes the portrait's stillness central to her reading. She observes that the girl holds rather than plays with the duck, and that the close crop and separated furniture contribute to a sense of balance and immobility. In Noehles's interpretation, the child is presented almost as another object within a carefully ordered composition; that is a formal argument, not a description of the girl's personality or Kahlo's stated intention. [2]

Watch: Frida Kahlo

Five perspectives to view here alongside the article.

Frida Kahlo’s The Two Fridas: Great Art Explained

Great Art Explained

A focused visual introduction to the painting and its context.

Seated Girl with Duck (attributed) in the early-portrait record

Timeline source: Museo Frida Kahlo chronology [3].

What “Rosita” Can—and Cannot—Tell Us

Art historians Salomon Grimberg, Jane C. H. Jacob and Laurent Sozzani report Kahlo's recollection of a “portrait of Rosita” given to her older sister Matilde. In their account, Matilde sold the picture to an old-clothes dealer, and the collector Salomón Hale subsequently found it at Mexico City's Lagunilla market for eight pesos. Their note connects this account to a work listed as Seated Girl with Duck in a 1981 Sotheby's New York sale. [1]

The underlying interview was published in Grimberg's Frida Kahlo: Song of Herself, a page not directly examined for this article. The IFAR Journal authors are therefore the accessible source for the recollection and its connection to the auctioned picture, not a newly inspected original statement by Kahlo. “Rosita” remains a first name in a reported memory; no checked document supplies the child's surname, age, relationship to Kahlo or reason for the portrait. [1]

Nor should the name lead to a different Kahlo work. Portrait of Doña Rosita Morillo is a separate portrait from 1944, with a different sitter and period. The child here must not be given that later sitter's identity simply because the names overlap. [1] [2]

A Photograph, an Unsigned Painting and Two Dates

The 2013 IFAR Journal article says Hale's painting was unsigned and undated when he acquired it. Its authors describe an earlier photograph of a signed and dated version, made shortly after painting and reproduced in the 1988 catalogue Frida Kahlo: Das Gesamtwerk. According to their description, the date visible there is 1928. They do not give an accessible technical account here of how or when the inscription ceased to be present on the surviving work. [1]

Noehles adds a crucial qualification. Her note reports that catalogue-raisonné author Helga Prignitz-Poda questioned the authenticity of the extant unsigned painting, while treating Guillermo Kahlo's black-and-white photograph of a signed and dated image as secure for her formal comparison. A historically photographed composition and the present painting thus should not be merged into an unqualified statement that the surviving canvas has been definitively authenticated. [2]

The date has a second source-specific difference. Noehles calls the composition a 1928 work, consistent with the reportedly photographed inscription. The 1981 Sotheby's lot, as cited by the IFAR authors, was listed circa 1929. Without directly examining the original photograph, the 1988 catalogue discussion and the 1981 lot, there is no reason to sharpen either into an exact execution day or to conceal the disagreement. [1] [2]

The 1981 Sale and the Limits of a Provenance

The IFAR authors identify the New York sale as Sotheby's 19th and 20th Century Paintings—Drawings—Sculpture—Prints on 7 May 1981, lot 10. They report a price of $33,000 including premium. That is a historical sale result in their account, not a present valuation, and the original auction catalogue and result have not been independently inspected here. [1]

Likewise, the reported sequence from Kahlo to Matilde, an old-clothes dealer, Hale and the 1981 sale is not a complete documented ownership chain. It rests here on a later recollection and scholarly reconstruction, and says nothing certain about every transfer or the work's present custodian. Noehles described the unsigned painting as in a private collection in Mexico in 2012; that dated statement cannot establish where it is held or whether it is displayed now. [1] [2]

Circulating painting lists give a precise size and an oil-on-canvas medium, but no original owner entry or directly examined catalogue confirms those fields in the present research. Leaving them out is more faithful to the evidence than making an At a Glance box appear artificially complete. A current registrar record, the 1981 lot and a technical comparison with the historic image would be needed to answer the physical-object questions. [1] [2]

An Early Portrait in a Longer Conversation

Noehles sets this child's orderly interior beside Kahlo's later Girl with Death Mask (1938). In her reading, the later picture brings more unsettling contrasts into the representation of childhood, whereas Niña sentada con pato is poised and comparatively still. The comparison is a way of looking across two images, not proof of a simple march from an “immature” to a “mature” style or of a fixed childhood symbol in every Kahlo painting. [2]

The earlier composition deserves attention even with its open questions. The close framing, the pause between child and toy, and the sparse furniture give the portrait a distinct visual character. Its history also shows why a work can be recognisable in a photographed form while the attribution of a surviving unsigned object remains debated. Clear attention to both the image and the record makes a more useful account than either a confident but unsupported catalogue card or a refusal to look at the work at all. [1] [2]

The Frida Kahlo overview places the portrait within a wider career. The artwork directory should distinguish qualified attributions from securely documented objects, while Kahlo's biography and technique and materials provide broader context without resolving this painting's authenticity. Noehles's later comparison, Girl with Death Mask, is its own work, not an explanation of Rosita's identity.

Discussion

Use the cited evidence and your own close looking to explain your view. The prompts below are starting points, not fixed interpretations.

Reader Insights

Close Looking

What can the child's pose, toy and separated furniture establish before a sitter story is assigned?

Context

How does the reportedly signed historic photograph differ from the surviving unsigned painting?

Open Question

Why do the 1928 photo report and the 1981 lot's circa-1929 date require separate labels?

Join the Conversation

Which reading best fits the evidence, and where does uncertainty remain?

References

  1. Salomon Grimberg, Jane C. H. Jacob and Laurent Sozzani, “Two Frida Kahlo Portraits: One Found, One Confirmed,” IFAR Journal 14, no. 3 (2013), PDF p. 4 / printed p. 26, especially the Rosita/Hale passage and notes 13–14. The article cites the original Olga Campos interview, 1988 catalogue and 1981 Sotheby's lot, none of which was directly read here; its main investigation concerns other portraits. View source text.
  2. Laura Rodrigues Noehles, “A interdependência dos opostos na arte de Frida Kahlo,” Fênix: Revista de História e Estudos Culturais 9, no. 1 (2012), PDF pp. 6–8 / printed pp. 7–9, especially the composition analysis and note 3 on Prignitz-Poda's doubts. Her cited 1988 catalogue page has not been directly read here. View source text.
  3. The Museo Frida Kahlo chronology supplies the comparison-work dates. For this attributed child portrait, the IFAR authors' auction citation reports a historic signed photograph dated 1928 and a 1981 lot listed circa 1929; the surviving unsigned painting's attribution is disputed. View source text 1; View source text 2.