The self-portrait, measuring thirty inches by twenty-four inches, depicts the artist in traditional Mexican attire and with her hands clasped by her stomach. A letter, held in her right hand, proclaims her love for Trotsky while she grips a bouquet of flowers in her left hand.
Kahlo is wearing a long gown with a red top-piece, a green neckline and a pink, pleated skirt. A brown shawl, each side held together beneath the subject’s joined hands, is draped around her shoulders while an ornate brooch is pinned just beneath the neckline of her gown. The artist, wearing red lipstick and rouge makeup on her cheeks, is turning her head towards the right-hand side of the panel and displaying an earring in her left ear that is similar in design to the brooch that is pinned to her gown. Red ribbons, a sprig of green vegetation and a pink flower are woven into the plaits of her dark hair that is worn up and bound at the nape of her neck.
Kahlo's figure is superimposed upon a light green background, similar in colour to the ripened flesh of an avocado, while two white curtains are tied back at the left and right-hand sides of painting. Green and white, two of the three colours that appear in the Mexican flag, represent hope and purity while the red of the ribbons in her hair and of the top-piece of her gown could symbolise the blood of the patriots who died in the Mexican revolution. Red, the colour of the flag of international socialism that symbolises the blood of the workers and the peasants, may also be a reference to Trotsky's involvement in the October Revolution in Russia that led to the formation of the Soviet Union. The artwork, displayed at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C., is one of several self-portraits painted by Kahlo.
