by Redazione 02/11/2026
Categories: Modern Art / Disclaimer
Having remained in the same family since it was purchased in Mexico City, the work is one of the artist’s extremely rare examples of the Surrealist technique of grattage.
An enigmatic figure with a long tail emerges from a surface crisscrossed by two intersecting golden lines. This is the subject of *Fil d’Or*, a painting created in 1953 by Leonora Carrington (Clayton Green, 1917 – Mexico City, 2011), which has resurfaced after more than seventy years in the same family collection. The work, which has so far remained off the market and out of public view, will be offered on November 10, 2026, by Heritage Auctions in Dallas as part of the Modern & Contemporary Art Signature auction, with an estimate of $250,000–350,000 (€223,000–312,000).
The painting was purchased in the very year it was created at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City and has remained in the same family ever since. Its authenticity has been verified by Heritage, which presents it as a rare example of Carrington’s exploration of the grattage technique—a Surrealist process involving the scraping away of layers of paint to reveal underlying textures and patterns.
It is precisely from the surface treated in this way that the figure takes shape, facing the viewer. Even the title, Fil d’Or—a French expression meaning “golden thread”—refers to the repertoire of transformations and hidden meanings that characterizes the artist’s personal language. According to the auction house, very few examples of Carrington’s works created using this technique have appeared on the market to date.
“Discoveries like this allow us to encounter a familiar artist from a new perspective,” said Frank Hettig, Heritage’s vice president of contemporary art. Hettig also emphasized how the modest dimensions of the canvas encompass a particularly rich imaginative universe and how its reemergence, along with that of other paintings, lends the auction a sense of rediscovery.
 |
| A painting by Leonora Carrington has resurfaced after more than seventy years: it was painted in 1953 |
Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.