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Plath portrait sells for $49,000

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From Associated Press

The National Portrait Gallery in London has bought the only surviving portrait of late poet laureate Ted Hughes by his wife and fellow poet, Sylvia Plath.

Plath sketched the drawing of Hughes in pen and ink in 1957, a year into their marriage.

Hughes destroyed many papers relating to their life together after Plath committed suicide in 1963, but he preserved the sketch. The museum bought it at an auction at Bonhams in London on Monday for $49,000.

The gallery will exhibit the portrait alongside portraits of other leading 20th century British poets, including T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, W.H. Auden and Philip Larkin.

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From Associated Press

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