Stolen Art DealerFrida Kahlo’s oil painting of herself asleep in a red four-poster bed that floats in a cloudy sky, under a yellow blanket with green vines creeping over it. On the canopy above lies a white papier-mâché skeleton with sticks of dynamite wired to its limbs and a bouquet of flowers on its chest, its head on two pillows.
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Catalogue No. 05 · Sotheby’s · New York
The Dream (The Bed)
Sold for
$54.7million
Sotheby’s, New York · 20 November 2025 · 38th of 392 in the Record Book
Confirmed by two sourcesAbout $56.8 million in today’s money: 650 years of the typical US household’s income. Source
- Artist
- Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907–1954)
- Title
- The Dream (The Bed) (El sueño (La cama))
- Date
- 1940
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 74 × 98 cm (29 × 38½ in)
Look closer
Bed in the clouds
A carved, colonial-style wooden four-poster bed drifts in a cloudy sky, with vines climbing over it and over the sleeper. A bedroom lifted into the sky is the most Surrealist touch, and the reason André Breton championed her, though she rejected the label.
Dynamite on the canopy
Sticks of dynamite are bound to the skeleton’s body and limbs. That turns a skeleton into a bomb, so the danger feels close rather than symbolic. Judas figures are set off with gunpowder at Easter.
The Judas skeleton
A smiling papier-mâché skeleton lies on top of the canopy, centred above the sleeper. AP says it is a Judas effigy and reports it was modelled on a skeleton Kahlo kept over her own bed.
Kahlo asleep
Kahlo lies on her back under a golden blanket. Sotheby’s calls the work a meditation on the boundary between sleep and death, and she often spent long periods in bed because of chronic pain.
Listen to the story
The narration from our Reel, about a minute long.
Read the narration
Asleep beneath a skeleton wired with dynamite. Frida Kahlo painted herself that way in nineteen forty. Below, her bed drifts through clouds, vines creeping over her. AP says it's a Judas, an Easter effigy traditionally blown up with gunpowder. AP reports it was inspired by a cardboard skeleton kept above her own bed. Sotheby's says it's often read as her fear of dying in her sleep. In nineteen eighty, it sold at Sotheby's for just fifty-one thousand dollars. It stayed in one private collection for forty-five years. Sold… for fifty-four point seven million dollars. It beat Georgia O'Keeffe's forty-four point four million dollars, the previous record for a woman. As of October twenty twenty-six, we've found no woman's work that has sold higher. The dynamite never goes off. She just keeps sleeping.
Frida Kahlo painted this in 1940. It shows her asleep in a carved wooden bed that floats among clouds, under a golden blanket, with vines creeping over her. On the canopy above her lies a skeleton wired with dynamite. Sotheby’s catalogue says the skeleton is often interpreted as her anxiety about dying in her sleep.
In 1980 Sotheby’s New York sold the painting for $51,000 to Nesuhi Ertegun, the Atlantic Records co-founder. It then stayed in one private collection for about 45 years. Artnet reports that the 2025 seller was the collection of Selma Ertegun. Sotheby’s did not name the owner.
On 20 November 2025 it came back to Sotheby’s New York, in the Exquisite Corpus evening sale. The hammer fell at $47 million. With the buyer’s premium the price was $54.7 million, paid by a telephone bidder who was never named.
That beat Georgia O’Keeffe’s $44.4 million from 2014 and made it the most expensive work by a woman artist ever sold at auction. As of October 2026, no higher price for a woman artist has been reported.
The sale
- Auction house
- Sotheby’s, New York
- Date
- 20 November 2025
- Lot
- 13
- Estimate
- $40–60 million
- Sold for
- $54.7 million (including buyer’s premium)
Test your eye on the market: set your estimates
Provenance
1940
Painted by Frida Kahlo.
Before 1980
Galería Misrachi, Mexico City, then a private collector in Mexico City who acquired it from the gallery.
9 May 1980
Sold at Sotheby’s New York for $51,000 to Nesuhi Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records.
1980–2025
Remained in one private collection for about 45 years. Artnet reports that the 2025 consignor was the collection of Selma Ertegun; Sotheby’s did not name the seller. Reported
20 November 2025
Sold at Sotheby’s New York for $54.7 million including fees, to an undisclosed buyer bidding by telephone through Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby’s head of Latin American art.
See it on a wall
Sources
- Sotheby’s lot page: El sueño (La cama)
- AP via PBS NewsHour: $54.7M sale of Frida Kahlo self-portrait breaks auction record for female artists
- Hyperallergic: Frida Kahlo Becomes Most Expensive Woman Artist at Auction
- Finestre sull’Arte: World record for Frida Kahlo, her Sueño sold for 54.7 million
Prices include the buyer’s premium, in US dollars at the time of sale, unless marked as a hammer price.