Their mother’s breast milk was the first of many things that Frida’s little sister Catherine would steal from Frida.

Born 11 months after Frida, Catherine was eager to have everything that Frida had starting with their mother’s breast milk and ending with Frida’s husband Diego. But that’s beside the point of this painting.

Frida was weaned from her mother before she was even a year old and was handed over to a indigenous woman for feeding. This woman, as depicted in the painting, didn’t exactly exude motherly instincts. She was actually fired for drinking on the job, which is a huge no no at any job but especially when it’s your job to breastfeed a baby. Turns out common sense isn’t that common.

Anyway…Frida didn’t remember the face of the woman who gave her her first sip of alcohol via titty (perhaps because she had a little baby buzz going) so instead she painted her with a pre-Columbian funerary mask and made her the world’s scariest looking wet nurse. Even the breast that’s feeding Kahlo looks like a medical diagram. No cuddle or caress indicates that the nurse has any affection for Kahlo whatsoever. It’s all about the milk money, hence the milk rain in the background and the milk leaf to the right of Kahlo and her nurse. Overall, this is for sure not the safest scenario for baby Frida but it still led us to the fighting feminist Frida that we know and love and so for that we are grateful. For this freaky rendering of adult baby Frida? Not so much.