David Barrie, Director of the Art Fund with the Wordsworth Trust's newly acquired Coleridge portrait. Courtesy The Wordsworth Trust.

Two important portraits of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth have been bought by the Wordsworth Trust.

The portraits were acquired following a grant of £17,578 from the National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund) and the V&A/MLA Purchase Grant Fund and will take pride of place at Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s former home in the Lake District.

David Barrie, Director of the Art Fund, said: “The sale of Roy David’s famous collection provided an unmissable opportunity to purchase these iconic portraits of Coleridge and Wordsworth.”

“These works are of great historical importance and will add a valuable new dimension to the already outstanding collection. We were only very glad to help the Wordsworth Trust acquire them.”

Barrie unveiled the portrait of Coleridge at the Wordsworth Trust on Monday October 17. Sketched in pencil, charcoal and chalk on blue grey paper by Charles Robert Leslie (1794-1859), the portrait presents Coleridge as a visionary poet. Although ill at the time, he allowed Leslie to draw him as they spoke.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Charles Robert Leslie (1794-1859). Courtesy Wordsworth Trust.

Notorious for his dislike of his own appearance and other artists’ renderings of it, Coleridge praised the drawing as ‘the most striking likeness ever taken - perhaps because I did not sit for it.’

It is being displayed alongside a portrait by another American artist, Washington Allston, who introduced Leslie to Coleridge in 1818.

The Trust’s other acquisition will be displayed in the Treasures of the Wordsworth Trust exhibition in November. It is a single sheet of paper with a drawing of Wordsworth on each side by Benjamin Robert Haydon, which was purchased for £3,036.

The drawings are part of a series of studies Haydon did of Wordsworth in preparation for his inclusion of an image of the poet in the crowd scene of his painting, ‘Christ’s Entry Into Jerusalem.’

Wordsworth and Coleridge were two of the premier Romantic poets in the early 19th Century. Both Lakeland residents, Coleridge often visited Wordsworth, author of the famous daffodils poem, at his home.

Courtesy The Wordsworth Trust.

(Above l to r) Wordsworth Trust Curator Jeff Couston, Development Director Mick MacGregor, Director of the Art Fund David Barrie and Regional Chairman For the Art Fund Jocelyn Holland.

Dr Robert Woof, Director of the Wordsworth Trust, said the portraits were important in their own right but also because they filled gaps in the collection.

“We are now able to compare the two portraits of Coleridge by the Americans Leslie and Allston side by side in our gallery,” he explained. “And we can also now follow completely Haydon’s progression in preparing to make his first painting of Wordsworth. Having such material brought together in one place is important in furthering an understanding of both the artists and the poets.’

Woof added, “We, of course, still have to raise the final £9,000 to complete the purchase but anybody viewing the drawings will see what excellent value they are.”

The Wordsworth Trust is funded by Rural Regeneration Cumbria, which aims to build a new economic future for Cumbria, and the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), which is responsible for the economic development and regeneration of the Northwest of England.