Frida Kahlo Painting Could Break Art Record for Female Artists by Selling for up to $60 Million

Frida Kahlo Painting Could Break Art Record for Female Artists by Selling for up to $60 Million Embed from Getty Images Frida Kahlo is often listed as one of the greatest artists of all time, making her paintings some of the most coveted among art collectors. And soon, this trend could reach new heights. Sotheby’s has announced that Kahlo’s self-portrait El sueño (La cama) (in Spanish, “The Dream (The Bed)”) is going […] READ: Frida Kahlo Painting Could Break Art Record for Female Artists by Selling for up to $60 Million

Art Sep 24, 2025 0 17 Add to Reading List

Frida Kahlo Painting Could Break Art Record for Female Artists by Selling for up to $60 Million

Frida Kahlo is often listed as one of the greatest artists of all time, making her paintings some of the most coveted among art collectors. And soon, this trend could reach new heights. Sotheby’s has announced that Kahlo’s self-portrait El sueño (La cama) (in Spanish, “The Dream (The Bed)”) is going up for auction later this year. With an estimated price of $40 million to $60 million, it could break some remarkable records.

The painting depicts Kahlo asleep on a four-poster bed, just like the one she used, which is on view at Casa Azul in Mexico City. Floating in a cloudy blue sky, the artist appears, lying on her side, wrapped in curling vines. Atop the canopy, a skeleton lies in the same position, wrapped in dynamite and holding a bouquet of dried flowers. While the painting comes across as an allegory for the impish views of death in Mexican culture and the artist’s own observations of it, Kahlo did have a papier-mâché skeleton on top of her bed.

“El sueño stands among Frida Kahlo’s greatest masterworks—a rare and striking example of her most surrealist impulses,” says Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby’s senior vice president and head of Latin American Art. “In this composition, Kahlo fuses dream imagery and symbolic precision with unmatched emotional intensity, creating a work that is at once deeply personal and universally resonant. It is an enduring testament to her genius and its appearance on the market presents an unparalleled opportunity to acquire a cornerstone of Surrealism.”

If El sueño (La cama) sells just over its low estimate, it will become the highest sum ever for a Kahlo painting. The current record holder is Diego y yo (1949), which depicts the artist holding hands with her partner, Diego Rivera, which sold for $34.9 million in 2021. More impressively, it could also break the record for the most expensive work by any female artist. For now, the title belongs to Georgia O Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1 (1932), which sold for $44.4 million in 2014.

“It’s not just one of the more important works by Kahlo, but one of a few that exists outside of Mexico and not in a museum collection,” Julian Dawes, vice chairman and head of impressionist and modern art for Sotheby’s Americas, told AP. “So as both a work of art and as an opportunity in the market, it could not be more rare and special.”

The painting is part of a major private collection to have been consigned to a sale titled “Exquisite Corpus,” featuring 80 surrealist “masterpieces” and adjacent works, such as Kahlo’s, as she often rejected this categorization. While Sotheby’s has not named the collector, The Art Newspaper points to it being late record label executive Nesuhi Ertegun and his wife Selma, due to El sueño (La cama) and other artworks being exhibited in the show Surrealism, two private eyes at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1991, which featured his collection. The sale also includes works by René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, and Remedios Varo.

After being presented in London alongside the announcement, El Sueño (La Cama) will be exhibited in Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Paris before its sale at Sotheby’s New York on November 8. To stay up to date, visit Sotheby’s website.