Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait *El sueño (La cama)* sold for $54.7 million at Sotheby's New York on November 20, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $40–60 million. The painting, consigned by the estate of Selma Ertegun, was won by a phone bidder handled by Sotheby's senior vice president Anna Di Stasi. The sale broke Kahlo's previous auction record of $34.9 million set in 2021 for *Diego y yo*, as well as the record for a Latin American artwork and the overall record for a work by a woman artist at auction, surpassing Georgia O'Keeffe's $44.4 million *Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1*.
The record-breaking result underscores the surging market for female Surrealists, a trend amplified by curator Cecilia Alemani's 2022 Venice Biennale and recent high-profile sales of works by Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and others. The painting's significance is further highlighted by its inclusion in a traveling exhibition devoted to Kahlo opening at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston in January and later at Tate Modern in London. The sale also reflects the enduring power of Kahlo's iconography and the growing institutional and collector focus on women artists historically marginalized within the Surrealist movement.