A self-portrait by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has sold for $US54 million ($85 million), setting a new record for the price of a painting by a woman, according to the auction house.

Kahlo's 1940 artwork, titled El sueno (la cama) — which translates to The dream (The bed) — sold in New York on Thursday.

The painting 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 $US44.4 million in 2014.

Kahlo's painting is "the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction," Sotheby's Auction said in a post on X.

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".

The record-setting sale

Kahlo

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