A haunting 1940 self-portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold Thursday for USD $54.7 million (AUD $84.9 million) and became the top-selling work by any female artist at an auction.

The painting of Kahlo asleep in a bed - titled “El sueño (La cama)” or in English, “The Dream (The Bed)” - surpassed the record held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1," which sold for USD $44.4 million (AUD $68.9 million) in 2014.

The sale at Sotheby's in New York also topped Kahlo's own auction record for a work by a Latin American artist.

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The 1949 painting “Diego and I,” depicting the artist and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, went for USD $34.9 million (AUD 54.2 million) in 2021.

Her paintings are reported to

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