A haunting 1940 self-portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has sold for $54.7m, making it the most expensive work by a female artist to sell at auction.

The painting of Kahlo asleep in a bed, titled El sueno (La cama) – or in English, The Dream (The Bed) – surpassed the record held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1, which sold for $44.4m in 2014.

The sale at Sotheby’s in New York on Thursday evening also topped Kahlo’s own auction record for a work by a Latin American artist.

The 1949 painting, Diego and I, depicting the artist and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, went for $34.9m in 2021.

Her paintings are reported to have sold privately for even more.

The self-portrait that broke records on Thursday is among the few Kahlo pieces that have remained in priva

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