The record-breaking multimillion-dollar sale of a Frida Kahlo painting in New York has fueled pride in her native Coyoacán, where locals say the sale further cements her status as a global cultural and feminist icon.

A 1940 self-portrait by Kahlo sold Thursday for $54.7 million and became the top-selling work by any female artist at an auction.

The painting of Kahlo depicts her asleep in a wooden, colonial-style bed that floats in the clouds. It is titled "El sueño (La cama)” or in English, "The Dream (The Bed)” and it has topped Kahlo’s own auction record for a work by a Latin American artist.

"She has grown so much, and her fame has reached a global level," said Coyoacán resident María Luisa Martínez.

"For us, Frida Kahlo is a source of pride,” she said.

The self-portrait is among the few Kahlo pieces that have remained in private hands outside Mexico, where her body of work has been declared an artistic monument.

Her works in both public and private collections within the country cannot be sold abroad or destroyed.

The painting comes from a private collection, whose owner has not been disclosed.

The buyer’s identity was not disclosed either.

The piece depicts Kahlo asleep in a wooden, colonial-style bed that floats in the clouds.

Above the bed lies a skeleton figure wrapped in dynamite.

Kahlo vibrantly and unsparingly depicted herself and events from her life, which was upended by a bus accident at 18.

She started to paint while bedridden, underwent a series of painful surgeries on her damaged spine and pelvis, then wore casts until her death in 1954 at age 47.

During the years Kahlo was confined to her bed, she came to view it as a bridge between worlds as she explored her mortality.

Born in Coyoacán eight decades ago, Miguel Ángel Vásquez Velasco still remembers his grandmother selling quesadillas at Kahlo's family's home.

"It fills us with great joy," he said, his voice breaking from emotion.

AP video shot by: Claudia Rosel and Cassandra Allwood