Dreams and Dynamites

A self-portrait by legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for $54.66 million in New York on Thursday, setting a new record for the price of a painting by a woman, the auction house Sotheby's said.

The sale of Kahlo's 1940 artwork, titled "El sueno (la cama)" -- which translates to "The dream (The bed)" -- 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 $44.4 million in 2014.

Kahlo's painting is "the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction," Sotheby's 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."

Kahlo's self-portrait went on the auction block at Sotheby's with an estimated price ranging from $40 million to $60 million.

The buyer's name was not disclosed. 

The artwork depicts the artist sleeping in a bed that appears to float among clouds in the sky, laying beneath a skeleton with legs that are wrapped with sticks of dynamite. 

- France24 with AFP