Frida Kahlo’s ‘The Dream (The Bed)’ Could Shatter Auction Records

Frida Kahlo’s 📅1940🖼️Painting El sueño (La cama) — or The Dream (The Bed) — is set to go up for auction on Nov. 20 in New York, carrying an estimated price tag of $40 million to $60 million, potentially making it the most expensive work ever sold by a female or Latin American artist.

According to The Associated Press, Sotheby’s is exhibiting the piece internationally in London, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Paris before the sale. Mexican art historian Helena Chávez Mac Gregor called the moment “a lot of speculation,” highlighting the intense interest surrounding the work.

In Mexico, Kahlo’s works are protected as national artistic monuments and cannot be sold or destroyed. But privately held pieces abroad, like this one, are legally available for international sale. “The system of declaring Mexican modern artistic heritage is very anomalous,” said curator Cuauhtémoc Medina.

El sueño (La cama) was painted following Kahlo’s trip to Paris, where she engaged with surrealist artists. The 🖼️Painting features a skull on the bed’s canopy, which Chávez Mac Gregor clarified is not a Day of the Dead skeleton but a Judas figure — a cardboard effigy traditionally burned during Easter to symbolize purification and the triumph of good over evil.