We wish to thank Professor Luis–Martín Lozano for his kind assistance in the research and cataloguing of the present work.Provenance:Private Collection, Pennsylvania.Thence by descent in the family. Private Collection, Maryland. Lot Note:Diego Rivera’s Muchacha con Trenzas (Girl with Braids) was painted in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the southern state of Oaxaca, Mexico - an important region for the artist, who had first explored it in 1922, just before he began working on his famed murals at Mexico City's Ministry of Education.The present work dates from a pivotal moment in Diego Rivera’s career. It follows the artist's dramatic return from the United States in late 1933, when Rivera was deeply disillusioned after the Rockefeller family censored and destroyed his unfinished mural Man at the Crossroads at Rockefeller Center in New York City.Seeking renewal and inspiration, Rivera traveled south. There, he painted several portraits capturing the strength and quiet dignity of the women of Tehuantepec, as exemplified in the present portrait of a girl that appears emblematic of Mexico’s indigenous heritage.