The most famous bed in contemporary art, a tangle of stained and rumpled sheets bearing expensive witness to a time of heartbreak for the artist Tracey Emin, is coming to the Tate gallery on long loan from its new owner, the German businessman and collector Count Christian Duerckheim.

Although Emin described the Tate as "the natural home" for her 1998 "My Bed," the gallery couldn't afford to bid at the recent Christie's auction where it eventually sold for £2.54m, more than twice the top pre-sale estimate.