(Credits: Sotheby’s)
A self-portrait from Frida Kahlo has sold for $55 million at auction.
The painting, which the late Mexican artist made during the 1940s and is titled ‘El Sueño (La Cama)’, went under the hammer at Sotheby’s and sold for the equivalent of £41.8 million, which is a new record for an artwork created by a woman.
The record previously belonged to Georgia O’Keeffe’s ‘Jimson Weed / White Flower No.1’, which was sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $44.4 million in 2014.
The first time that ‘El Sueño (La Cama)’ went under the hammer in 1980, it sold for only $51,000 which is a drop in the ocean compared with the $55 million it went for this week.
Sotheby’s head of Latin American art, Anna Di Stasi, said in a statement of the historic sale, “This record-breaking result shows just how far we have come, not only in our appreciation of Frida Kahlo’s genius, but in the recognition of women artists at the very highest level of the market.”
The new owner of the artwork has not been disclosed by Sotheby’s. It previously belonged to a private art collection, which has not been revealed. It has not been on public display since the 1990s, which is another reason why it has such a high market value.
The lack of Kahlo pieces available for sale, due to most being preserved in Mexico for cultural purposes, also enhanced the value of ‘El Sueño (La Cama)’.
According to The Guardian, exhibitions in New York, London, and Brussels have already requested the use of ‘El Sueño (La Cama)’.
Kahlo died in 1954, aged just 47.
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