John Ruskin letters about Effy Gray sell for £90,000

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Previously unseen letters offering insights into the failed marriage of 19th Century critic John Ruskin have sold at auction for nearly £90,000.

Effie Gray, Ruskin's wife, left the art critic for his protege, Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais.

The doomed marriage is the subject of the recently released film Effie Gray.

The 75 letters written by Ruskin to a priest offer some frank observations, including that he "married like a fool, because a girl's face pleased me".

He went on to say: "She married me for my money, breaking her faith to a poor lover."

'Non-activity in the bedroom'

Ruskin wrote this in 1872 - almost 20 years after the annulment of the marriage - at which time he lived in Coniston, Cumbria.

The letters went to a private collector for £88,900 at Bonhams auction house in London.

Luke Batterham, from Bonhams, described the correspondence as a "very rare" insight into the couple's marriage.

He said: "He met Effie Gray when she was 12, married her when she was 17 and the marriage only lasts five years.

"She pushed for an annulment due to non-activity in the bedroom, is the contended idea from her side."

He said the letters had been kept by Ruskin's family and gone unseen until now.