A DRAWING by Charlotte Brontë completed when she was just 13-years-old is now in the hands of the Bronte Society after it successfully bid for the artwork at an auction.

The society announced last week that it had managed to buy the drawing, called Fisherman Sheltering Against a Tree, for £13,125 in an auction recently held at Sotheby’s.

The work is signed and dated October 23 1829 and depicts a figure in a hat holding a fishing rod in driving rain, huddled by a river beneath a windswept tree. The drawing was copied from an illustation in Thomas Bewick's 1816 book, History of British Birds.

A spokesman for the society explained that the Brontë sisters had been lovers of Bewick’s work, with his History of British Birds book providing the first copybook for all four of the Brontë children. Charlotte Brontë, best known for her novel Jane Eyre refers to Bewick in the novel. One passage in chapter one of Jane Eyre reads: "With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon..."

Ann Dinsdale, the collections manager at Haworth's Brontë Parsonage Museum said she and her colleagues were delighted with the auction purchase.

“We’re thrilled to be able to bring this drawing home to Haworth to sit with the rest of the collection of the Brontë family," she added.

"This sketch represents the start of Charlotte’s creative genius and is a rare insight into one of Britain’s great literary minds.

"We’re committed to locating and securing the Brontë family’s possessions to maintain the legacy of the family and strengthen their literary heritage.”

Brontë Society president Bonnie Greer said: “The acquisition of this exquisite piece of Charlotte’s juvenilia is another example of the Brontë Society and the Brontë Parsonage Museum‘s leadership in not only the discovery, purchase and display of Bronte artefacts, but of our leadership in Brontë studies.

"This great news is down to the hard work and commitment not only of Ann Dinsdale, head of collections, but to the rest of the Parsonage Museum including its leadership team, the staff, and all who give them positive support and encouragement.

"It is a great coup for Haworth, Keighley and the whole of glorious Yorkshire.”

The drawing will be placed on public display in early 2015 and will be available for the audience to view in the parsonage’s public exhibition.