It is one of Frida Kahlo's last self-portraits, and it depicts the artist's fragility and inner agony as a result of her husband Diego Rivera's infidelity.

Seven decades later, in a strange twist of destiny, the painting has sold for about $35 million, making it the most expensive Latin American piece of art ever sold at auction and breaking Rivera's previous record.

Diego y yo (Diego and Me, 1949), which sold for $34.9 million (£25 million) at Sotheby's auction house in New York on Tuesday, depicts Rivera in the center of Kahlo's forehead.

With its representation of the couple's stormy relationship, the oil painting has long captivated art enthusiasts. Rivera is said to represent Kahlo's third eye, which represents the extent to which he filled her mind.

The transaction was dubbed "the ultimate revenge" and a vindication of Kahlo's creativity by Anna Di Stasi, the head of Latin American Art at Sotheby's.

"Painted the same year her beloved Diego began an affair with her friend, the Mexican golden age actress Maria Félix," Di Stasi said, "this powerful portrait is the painted articulation of her anguish and sorrow."

"You could call tonight's outcome the ultimate retaliation, but it's actually the ultimate validation of Kahlo's extraordinary talent and global appeal."

"Diego y yo is so much more than a beautifully rendered picture. It's a painted summation of all of Kahlo's passion and suffering, a masterwork of the artist's raw expressive intensity at the pinnacle of her powers."

Kahlo and Rivera married twice before Kahlo died in 1954 at the age of 47. Kahlo is today one of the most well-known painters of the twentieth century, yet she was a 15-year-old art student when she met Rivera in 1922, and he was a 36-year-old world-famous mural artist. He captivated her right away, and the two married in 1928.

"I suffered two great accidents in my life, one in which a streetcar knocked me down...," Kahlo wrote in a journal. Diego is the other accident."

It was an eerie parallel between her spouse and the bus tragedy that almost killed her when she was 18 and left her with horrible injuries, including a shattered spine.

Rivera's romance with Félix became a national scandal, with media saying that he intended to marry her as soon as he divorced Kahlo. "I adore Frida, but I believe my presence is very bad for her health," he was reported as adding.

Though Kahlo made jokes about the affair and said she didn't mind, Diego y yo, in which her typically firmly braided hair is free, nearly strangling her, her cheeks flushed, and her gaze sorrowful - suggestive of Madonna of the Sorrows – reveals the intensity of her feelings. In 1990, Sotheby's sold the artwork for $1.4 million.

Eduardo F Costantini, the founder of a museum in Buenos Aires, was the painting's bidder, according to the auction house. It was bought for his own collection.

Rivera previously held the record for the most expensive Latin American piece of art sold at auction, with his painting Los Rivales selling for $9.76 million in 2018.

A painting by the French artist Pierre Soulages, which sold for $20.2 million on Tuesday, set a new high for his work. Peinture, which had been in a private collection for more than 30 years, comes from the century-old French artist's red phase.

Soulages' painting sparked a bidding war between multiple buyers, some in the Sotheby's auction room and others over the phone, exceeding the artist's previous high of €9.6 million achieved in Paris in 2019.

Experts praise Kahlo's work for its rich iconography and emotional intensity, which combined violence with sensitivity and often defied gender conventions. Countless novels and films have been inspired by the artist's lifestyle, which includes drinking and drug usage.

Thanks to Nadia Khomami at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.