Back in 2020, an unfinished drawing by Sylvia Plath appeared, and sold, via auction. The winner was a lucky person, as Sylvia Plath drawings are rare and unique. The drawing does not appear in 2013's Sylvia Plath: Drawings. The reason being it first appeared at auction in 2006, so it probably was no longer in Frieda Hughes' possession as was the case with the rest of these drawings that were part of the Mayor Gallery exhibition and sale. Likely as not because there was so little information about it; though there are unfinished and unidentified works included in that book.
Annually, around May for some reason, I search for this church. Plath's life is so well-documented that one practically knows her whereabouts for any given day. Using her letters and journals and pocket calendars, I created a list of all the times she mentioned drawing or sketching something in an effort to trace this unfinished village church scene. Based on what is visible, I did not think it was England or the US, which narrowed down things a bit to France and Spain. Plath visited also Germany, Italy, Monaco, Canada, Mexico (oh so briefly), Wales, and Ireland, but there was nothing to suggest that she drew very much in these locations. And the presence of the cart in the drawing suggested, to me, some place quite rustic.
I concentrated on Spain. Thinking that it might be Benidorm or Alicante, two places that were very small and rustic, maybe, in 1956, but which are now much more developed. Not finding the church, I thought, maybe perhaps it was torn down or fell down and is now an apartment complex or shopping center, such as was the fact of Falcon Yard in Cambridge. But in a discussion of Plath's drawings recently with Anna Dykta, who owns and has run the Loving Sylvia Plath Instagram account for more than a decade, she let me know about two church's in Dordogne and Finisterre that had some faint traces of similarity. But! I know what you are thinking! You are thinking Plath did not really do very many line drawings after 1956. She did make one of the site of a church in Hawley, Massachusetts, at some point. Likely in the 1957-1958 year when she and Ted Hughes were living in Northampton and had proximity and opportunity to visit Hawley, 30-ish miles away. The house may or may not still be standing, but it is or was in the vicinity of E Hawley Road and Forget Road. It is on page 50 of Drawings. As well, she did drawings at Yaddo in 1959.
Anyway, so Anna got me thinking about France and I took a chance and used Google Earth to look at Loubressac, where Plath and Hughes visited the Merwins in July 1961. In Google Earth I found a symbol for a church so honed in on that and immediately I spotted a good architectural detail and likeness to Plath's drawing, albeit it a fuzzily-rendered, pixelated image on my computer.
So, I Googled "Church Loubressac" and immediately confronted with images that exactly matched Plath's drawing. I hopped over to Street View and was happy to see some of Loubressac was recorded there.
So! So, now we know that Plath sketched the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Loubressac and that she did so in July 1961. And it might possibly be the last drawing Sylvia Plath started.
I thought I blogged about another unidentified drawing, too, but I was mistaken, having only done a Tweet about that when I was still on that platform back in January 2024. (Whenever I type the word "platform" I always accidentally write "plathform" first.) With much less preamble, this time.... In Sylvia Plath: Drawings, there appears on page 8, the "Study of a Church and Chapel, 1956, Pencil, pen and ink on paper, 14 x 21cm." This particular church is in Grantchester and it is the Church of Saint Andrew and Saint Mary Grantchester.
I found this essentially the same way. One day I was working on a side project and was clicking my way through Grantchester using Street View. When I got to the church I did a double take as it was very familiar. I immediately remembered that it was a drawing by Plath and to quote from the end of the poem "Two Lovers And A Beachcomber By The Real Sea": "And that is that, is that, is that."
There are still a few drawings presently unidentified. The "Study of a Manor" on page 9 of Drawings being one of them. While I think the drawing looks like an English building, I am wondering now if perhaps this was also in the Loubressac area, perhaps even the Merwins home or some place near it? Or maybe it was a house they looked at when they were house hunting that summer of 1961 before settling on Court Green? Though the drawing is very accomplished in that it appears she spent a decent amount of time on its creation, possibly more time they one spends when house hunting.
All links accessed 12 May 2025.
Update: 13 May 2025: Anna located the drawing of the manor mentioned above. It is of the Old Queens' College Library, Cambridge. She likely sketched it from the opposite bank of the River Cam as can be seen in the lower two Street View screen captures.
Thank you, Anna!