A SELF-PORTRAIT by legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for $54.66 million in New York on yesterday, setting a new record for the price of a painting by a woman.

The sale of Kahlo’s 1940 artwork, titled “El sueno (la cama)” – which translates to “The dream (The bed)” – breaks the previous record in this category, set by American artist Georgia O’Keeffe, whose 1932 painting “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1,” sold for $44.4 million in 2014.

Kahlo’s painting is “the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction,” auction house Sotheby’s said in a post on X.

'El sueño (La cama)' by Frida Kahlo soars to $54.7 million, becoming the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction.

Painted in 1940 during a pivotal decade in her career, marked by her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera. pic.twitter.com/t6Sni7fIKT

— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) November 21, 2025

The auction house said Kahlo’s work was “painted in 1940 during a pivotal decade in her career, marked by her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera.”

Kahlo’s self-portrait went on the auction block at Sotheby’s with an estimated price ranging from $40 million to $60 million.

The buyer’s name was not disclosed.

The artwork depicts the artist sleeping in a bed that appears to float among clouds in the sky, laying beneath a skeleton with legs that are wrapped with sticks of dynamite.

This painting is a “very personal” image, in which Kahlo “merges folkloric motifs from Mexican culture with European surrealism,” Anna Di Stasi, head of Latin American art at Sotheby’s, said.

The Mexican artist, who passed away in 1954 at age of 47, “did not completely agree” with her work being associated with the surrealist movement, Di Stasi said.

Frida Kahlo. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

However, “given this magnificent iconography, it seems entirely appropriate to include it” in this movement.

The record-setting sale came two nights the New York auction house reeled in another record sale, with a painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt fetching $236.4 million on the block – the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,” which he painted between 1914 and 1916, depicts the daughter of his main patron dressed in a white imperial Chinese dress, standing before a blue tapestry with Asian-inspired motifs.

The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the “Salvator Mundi,” attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for $450 million in 2017.