Frida Kahlo’s 1940 self-portrait El sueño (La cama) (The Dream (The Bed)) has set a new auction record for a work by a female artist, selling for US $54.7 million at Sotheby’s in New York. The sale took place on 20 November 2025 during the auction house’s modern art evening sale.
The result also marks the highest price ever paid for a Latin American artwork at auction.
The painting, completed in 1940, depicts Kahlo asleep beneath a skeleton figure resting above her bed, a work widely recognised as one of her most striking self-portraits.
Prior to this sale, the auction record for a female artist was held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932), which sold for US $44.4 million in 2014.
November 25, 2025
1
of 14