--- title: Tracey Emin's 'My Bed' Sells for $3.77 Million description: For the price one buyer paid for Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’, you could buy 2,500 TempurPedics canonical: https://time.com/2933839/tracey-emin-my-bed-auctioned/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-01T19:17:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T08:40:28.111Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: This Dirty Bed Just Sold for Over $3.7 Million og:description: Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ costs as much as 2,500 TempurPedics og:url: https://time.com/2933839/tracey-emin-my-bed-auctioned/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt132289c023014b27/698699a106f2c1737432fafd/tracey-emin-my-bed.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Tracey Emin's 'My Bed' To Be Auctioned At Christie's og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Dirty Bed Just Sold for Over $3.7 Million twitter:description: Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ costs as much as 2,500 TempurPedics twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt132289c023014b27/698699a106f2c1737432fafd/tracey-emin-my-bed.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Dirty Bed Just Sold for $3.77 Million by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jul 1, 2014 7:17 PM UTC  Tracy Emin's 1998 piece My Bed on display at Christie's in London on June 27, 2014 Tracy Emin's 1998 piece My Bed on display at Christie's in London on June 27, 2014Rob Stothard—Getty Images by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jul 1, 2014 7:17 PM UTC When Tracey Emin got dumped, she didn’t get out of bed for four days, depressed. Then she took her dirty bed and turned it into a famous work of art. ‘My Bed’ was [sold](https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/484046922475642881) at a Christie’s [auction](http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/emins-bed-artwork-sold-for-22m-30398908.html) in London on Tuesday for around $3.77 million, a huge spike since it sold to world-class art collector Charles Saatchi in 2000 for about $200,000. The work consists of dirty sheets, underpants stained by menses, used condoms, empty liquor bottles, and pregnancy tests. It was shortlisted for the coveted Turner Prize in 1999, but did not win. It did, however, help cinch Emin’s notoriety as one of the YBAs—that is, Young British Artists, though she and her contemporaries like Damien Hirst are no longer so young. In an interview last year with the New York _Times_ Magazine, Emin said revisiting ‘My Bed’ when reinstalling it for exhibits brought back evocative memories of her youth: “I was thinking, with the cigarettes, that’s so weird because I don’t smoke anymore. I haven’t had sex for years, and there’s this condom. God, there’s a tampon, and I haven’t had a period for years.” The work is arguably Emin’s best-known, rivaled only by ‘Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995,’ a tent whose interior she appliquéd with the names of everyone whose bed she had ever shared, sexually or platonically. That work, also acquired by Saatchi, was destroyed in the Momart warehouse fire in London in 2004. ‘My Bed’ sold for approximately $3.77 million, which would buy you something in the region of 2,500 ordinary beds priced at $1,500 each. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2933839/tracey-emin-my-bed-auctioned/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2933839/tracey-emin-my-bed-auctioned/"},"headline":"This Dirty Bed Just Sold for $3.77 Million","datePublished":"2014-07-01T19:17:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:40:28.111Z","description":"For the price one buyer paid for Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’, you could buy 2,500 TempurPedics","url":"https://time.com/2933839/tracey-emin-my-bed-auctioned/","keywords":["Fine Art"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt132289c023014b27/698699a106f2c1737432fafd/tracey-emin-my-bed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt132289c023014b27/698699a106f2c1737432fafd/tracey-emin-my-bed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Tracey Emin's 'My Bed' To Be Auctioned At Christie's","caption":"Tracey Emin's 'My Bed' To Be Auctioned At Christie's","creditText":"Rob Stothard—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/fine-art/","name":"Fine Art"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2933839/tracey-emin-my-bed-auctioned/","name":"This Dirty Bed Just Sold for $3.77 Million"}}]}] ```