Frida Kahlo's 'El sueño' Sets New Record for Most Expensive Female Artist at Auction

Frida Kahlo's 1940 painting 'El sueño (La cama)' sold for $54.7 million at Sotheby's New York on November 20, 2025, during the 'Exquisite Corpus' session at the Breuer Building. This sets a new auction record for a female artist, surpassing the previous $44 million record held by Georgia O'Keeffe's 'Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1' (also sold by Sotheby's in 2014). The work, estimated at $40-60 million, was guaranteed but bidding opened at $22 million and lasted about five minutes, with the winning bid placed by Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby's Head of Latin American Art, on behalf of a collector. The painting had last sold at Sotheby's in 1980 for $51,000. 'El sueño' depicts Kahlo in bed with a skeleton, reflecting her turmoil following her divorce from Diego Rivera and the assassination of her former lover Leon Trotsky. The sale is part of a broader trend of rising recognition for female artists, though the overall auction record for a male artist remains $450.3 million for Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi' (2017). The work came from an anonymous collection, believed to be that of Selma and Nesuhi Ertegun, which also included works by Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, and René Magritte.