A self-portrait painted by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for a record-breaking $54.7 million at a New York auction last Thursday.
The sale price makes the piece, titled ‘El Sueño (La Cama)’ or in English ‘The Dream (The Bed),’ the most expensive piece by any female artist.
Featuring Kahlo asleep in her bed, the piece, painted in 1940, surpassed the painting price of the previous record holder, Georgia O’Keeffe, whose painting ‘Jimson Weed/White Flower No.1’ sold for $44.4 million in 2014.
The historic artwork was sold at Sotheby’s and was purchased for more than 1000 times the price it was originally bought for at that same auction house 45 years prior.
Deeper meaning of Frida Kahlo's record-breaking painting
"When this painting sold at Sotheby's in 1980 for $51,000, few could have imagined it returning 45 years later to command $55 million. This record-breaking result shows just how far we have come, not only in our appreciation of Frida Kahlo's genius, but in the recognition of women artists at the very highest level of the market," Anna Di Stasi, head of Latin American art at Sotheby's, said. "In El sueño, Kahlo confronts her own fragility, yet what emerges is a portrait of extraordinary resilience and strength. It is an enduring testament to one of the most admired and sought-after artists of our time."
In its catalogue note, Sotheby's said the painting "offers a spectral meditation on the porous boundary between sleep and death."
"The suspended skeleton is often interpreted as a visualization of her anxiety about dying in her sleep, a fear all too plausible for an artist whose daily existence was shaped by chronic pain and past trauma," the catalogue noted.