A Frida Kahlo Painting Just Became the Most Expensive Work by a Female Artist Ever Auctioned

“The Dream (The Bed),” a self-portrait created in 1940, sold for $54.7 million. The previous record holder, Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1,” went for $44.4 million in 2014

Sonja Anderson

– Daily Correspondent

November 21, 2025

A self-portrait by Frida Kahlo just sold for $54.7 million—the highest price ever paid at auction for an artwork by a woman or Latin American artist.

Kahlo painted El Sueño (La Cama), Spanish for The Dream (The Bed), in 1940. It shows her sleeping, blanketed by vines, in a wooden four-poster bed. On top of the bed, a skeleton is wrapped in explosives and holding a bouquet. Ahead of the sale, the auction house Sotheby’s predicted that the “rare and special” painting would sell for between $40 million and $60 million.

“Frida Kahlo occupies a completely singular place in art history,” Anna Di Stasi, head of Latin American art at Sotheby’s, tells CNN’s Lianne Kolirin in an email. “There’s an almost spiritual connection people have with her paintings, which are so deeply personal yet at the same time resonate universally.”

Previously, the most expensive artwork by a woman was Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, which sold for $44.4 million in 2014. However, when the price is adjusted for inflation, Jimson Weed’s price is $60.5 million in today’s dollars—slightly higher than The Dream (The Bed)’s, according to the New York Times’ Zachary Small and Tim F. Schneider.

Before the November 20 sale, the most expensive piece by Kahlo was Diego and I (1949), a self-portrait showing the face of her husband, Diego Rivera, on her own forehead. That artwork sold for $34.9 million in 2021.

Kahlo was born in 1907 in Mexico City. Her life was shaped by powerful family relationships, romantic toil with Rivera and physical pain following a bus accident when she was a teenager. Of the 143 paintings Kahlo created, 55 are self-portraits, often portraying the artist alongside animals and nature. In addition to Diego and I, some of her more conceptual self-portraits include The Two Fridas (1939), which shows two versions of Kahlo, and The Broken Column (1944), which portrays Kahlo’s injured spine as a cracked column.

Just like in The Dream (The Bed), Kahlo’s real bedroom featured a papier-mâché skeleton above the bed. Meanwhile, the explosives suggest “Kahlo’s intent to signal a passage between dimensions—between reality and dream, life and death,” the art historian Luis-Martín Lozano, who wrote about the painting for Sotheby’s, explains to the Times.

The self-portrait had been “one of very few works of this calibre still in private hands,” Di Stasi tells CNN. “This painting has all the hallmarks of a signature Frida: the self-portrait, a Surrealist imagery and, most importantly, a psychological intensity and that sense of communion between artist and viewer.”

Julian Dawes, head of Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s, organized The Dream (The Bed)’s auction. He tells the Times that the painting’s price estimate was low because Kahlo isn’t the sole subject of the painting. He’s seen Kahlo self-portraits sell for more than $50 million in private deals.

Lot013 N11727 Frida Kahlo, El sueño (La cama)

“If a canvas of this size were filled by a full portrait of Frida, zoomed in, it would probably be an estimate of $80 million to $100 million-plus,” he adds. “And I think the market would have been there in a heartbeat.”

Sotheby’s had auctioned The Dream (The Bed) once before. It sold for $51,000 in 1980 (more than $200,000 in today’s dollars), according to a statement from the auction house. While the artist died in 1954, her popularity has only grown since then. Her work has been shown in countless exhibitions, and Mexico City has several museums dedicated to her work.

“I’m very proud that she’s one of the most valued women, because really, what woman doesn’t identify with Frida, or what person doesn’t?” Kahlo’s great-niece, Mara Romeo Kahlo, tells the AP. “I think everyone carries a little piece of my aunt in their heart.”