Until now, the record was held by the American Georgia O’Keeffe, who died in 1986. Her 1932 painting, Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, depicting a white bindweed flower, was bought for $44.4 million in 2014. The work had adorned prestigious walls, including that of the White House Private Dining Room, throughout George W. Bush’s term in office.
Kahlo, who died in 1954 at the age of 47, currently holds the record for second most expensive work created by a woman with her painting Diego y yo (Diego and I), which found a buyer in November 2021 for $34.9 million. This is her last self-portrait, signed in the 1940s, depicting her with her husband Diego Rivera.
El Sueño (La cama), an oil on canvas, measuring 74 cm by 98 cm, is a “rare and striking example” of Kahlo’s “most surrealist impulses,” says Sotheby’s. The body and skeleton reflect the duality between life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness, a recurring theme for the artist. Tormented by death, which she dreaded encountering in her sleep, she herself kept a papier-mâché skeleton above her bed, reports The Guardian.
The painting, from a private collection, will be offered for purchase alongside 23 other works. These include four paintings by Belgian painter René Magritte, including La Représentation and La Révélation du présent, Composition by Paul Delvaux and two paintings by Salvador Dalí, Symbiose de la tête aux coquillages and La Ville.
Originally published in Vanity Fair France
