Frida Kahlo's painting *El sueño (La cama)* (1940) sold at Sotheby's New York for $54.7 million on Thursday night, setting a new auction record for any artwork by a female artist. The sale, which lasted under five minutes, exceeded the previous record held by Georgia O'Keeffe's *Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1* ($44.4 million in 2014). The painting was backed by an irrevocable bid and came from the collection of Selma Ertegun, offered as part of a Surrealist group titled "Exquisite Corpus." Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby's head of Latin American art, placed the winning bid on behalf of a client.
This record underscores the surging market demand for works by female modernists, particularly Kahlo, whose market has grown dramatically since her lifetime. The sale also highlights the enduring financial power of top-tier Surrealist collections and the role of private collectors like Ertegun in shaping auction narratives. The painting's upcoming exhibition schedule at major museums through 2028 further cements Kahlo's institutional and commercial rehabilitation, while the price gap between male and female artists at auction remains stark—Leonardo da Vinci's *Salvator Mundi* still holds the overall record at $450.3 million.