Shortly after her divorce from Diego Rivera in 1939, Frida cut off her long hair and rejected her femininity to express the pain she felt over the separation. This self-portrait was painted shortly after their remarriage in December of 1940 and in it, hair again becomes the vehicle through which she expresses her feelings about their marital reconciliation. The strands of hair that had previously been cut off in "Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair", have been gathered up again and plaited into a new braid which, in its shape of an endless loop, might be seen as a symbol of the eternal circle of time. This idea is reinforced by the leaves entwined around the naked upper body of the artist. In this painting, Frida attempts to restore the femininity which she previously rejected and symbolically renounced. In 1942, this painting was included in the exhibition "Twentieth-Century Portraits" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.