National Portrait Gallery buys Hughes portrait
Published October 5th, 2005
A rare sketch of the West Yorkshire poet Ted Hughes, drawn by his wife Sylvia Plath in 1957, has been bought by the National Portrait Gallery.
Sketched in the first year of their tempestuous marriage, the drawing was her only known portrait of Hughes and fetched £27,600 at auction on Monday.
It was one of more than 300 portraits belonging to collector Roy Davids.
The gallery said it had been keen to acquire a true-to-life picture of the poet for some time.
Hughes burned many of his papers before his death in 1998 but gave the sketch to Mr Davids, a lifelong friend.
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