Price of Kahlo Painting Scares Off Buyers

The $1.2 million bid was not enough so a California family will hang onto Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait With Bonito” a little longer.

Officials at Wolf’s auction house were saddened, but not surprised that the painting, considered “lost” for decades, did not meet the seller’s minimum at Thursday night’s sale.

“Prices are soft everywhere,” said Rachel N. Davis, fine arts director of the auction house.

The sale price for the painting had been expected to reach as high as $2 million after another Kahlo work sold for $1.6 million in May.

The gallery was packed but the only bids came over the phone.

Dated 1941, the painting had been considered “lost” by art scholars who could not trace it after World War II when Syrie Maugham, wife of author Somerset Maugham, donated it to the war effort.