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Kahlo's 1940 masterpiece, El sueño (The Dream), will be up for auction at Sotheby's in November

Kahlo's 1940 masterpiece, El sueño (The Dream), will be up for auction at Sotheby's in November

22 September 2025

The 1940 painting El Sueño (La Cama) (the dream, the bed) shows Kahlo sleeping, wreathed in vines, floating in the sky, while a large skeleton, wired with explosives and holding a bouquet, rests on the canopy of the bed. In order to symbolize the continuity between life and death—a recurring theme in her work—Kahlo actually placed a smaller papier-mâché skeleton on top of her bed.

Although the 74-by-98-cm oil on canvas has not been guaranteed, it is still possible that it will be pre-sold closer to the auction. It will fetch the highest price the artist has ever received at auction if it sells close to its low estimate. Diego y yo (1949) currently holds this title. It features the artist and Rivera and sold for $34.9 million (including fees) at Sotheby's New York in 2021. The private market is thought to have sold Kahlo's paintings for significantly more.
Furthermore, if the piece sells for more than its low estimate, it may also surpass the record for the most expensive piece by a female artist, which is currently $44.4 million for Georgia O. Keeffe's Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932), sold at Sotheby's New York in 2014.

Sotheby's said today that El Sueňo is one of several gems from a large private collection that have been consigned to the November sale.
According to The Art Newspaper, the collection belongs to Turkish-American record label executive Nesuhi Ertegun and his wife Selma, even though Sotheby's has refused to identify it. Two years after Nesuhi's death in 1989, his collection was displayed with his friend Daniel Filipacchi's at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York as part of the Surrealism, Two Private Eyes exhibition. As part of the Nesuhi Ertegun collection, every piece that Sotheby's announced today was on display at this Guggenheim exhibition. Thomas Krens, the museum's former director, referred to both collections as "perhaps the finest holdings of Surrealist art in private hands today" in the exhibition catalogue.