"I feel this is something that shouldn't be in private hands"

The Yorkshire Post reports the results of the recent auction of Patrick Brontë's newly-discovered photograph, which fetched more than double the initial estimate: £1, 476

A RARE photograph of the father of the literary Brontë sisters fetched £1, 476 at auction yesterday and will be given to the museum in Haworth.
The faded sepia image of the Rev Patrick Brontë, Rector of Haworth, was found recently among papers in an old film box.
It has been lost since it was sold for one shilling (5p) in 1898 and was expected to fetch £600.
Yesterday a woman from the south of England, bidding by telephone, beat off competition from a London dealer to snap up the portrait photo for nearly three times more than expected at Surrey auctioneers Ewbank Clarke Gammon Wellers.
The unidentified buyer said afterwards she would present the photo to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth.
"I feel this is something that shouldn't be in private hands," she said.
The photograph was once on display along with other Brontë mementoes at the Temperance tearooms in Haworth.
Still in its original oval gilt frame, its whereabouts were a mystery until it was discovered at a provincial antiques fair. (...)
An inscription on the reverse of the portrait, presumably the original museum description, reads: "Rev P Brontë; Various relics including an oval photograph framed and glazed, a small china blue and white plate often used by him and a sword stick."

From BrontëBlog we would love to curtsy and bow and salute the anonymous bidder for such a gesture. We are not speaking for the Brontë Society, but thank her profusely for her generosity.

Categories: Brontëana, In the News, Patrick Brontë