With one of the most recognisable faces in the world of art, an audio recording of the iconic Frida Kahlo has said to have been unearthed in Mexico.

French photographer Giséle Freund, who once described Kahlo’s voice as “melodious and warm” but little has been recording the means of audio when it comes to the artist’s voice.

The National Sound Library of Mexico now believe they have found the first ever audio recording go Kahlo’s voice, a clip which has been rescued from an old pilot episode of 1955 radio show El Bachiller. The radio episode in question when to air shortly after Kahlo’s death in 1954.

The show was focusing on Kahlo’s husband Diego Rivera, also an artist. The audio clip is said to capture Kahlo reading from her essay Portrait of Diego, taken from a 1949 exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts.

“He is a gigantic, immense child, with a friendly face and a sad gaze,” she says. “His high, dark, extremely intelligent and big eyes rarely hold still. They almost come out of their sockets because of their swollen and protuberant eyelids – like a toad’s. They allow his gaze to take in a much wider visual field, as if they were built especially for a painter of large spaces and crowds.”

“Frida’s voice has always been a great enigma, a never-ending search,” library national director, Pável Granados, said in a press conference. “Until now, there had never been a recording of Frida Kahlo.”

The audio clip in question is said to be made in 1953 or 1954 and, if proven to be legitimate, will be the only audio recording in history of Kahlo.