A WORLD-FAMOUS artist has spoken of his delight and pride after a portrait he painted of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sold for £43,750 at auction.

The oil painting was one of six portraits of the Iron Lady painted by West Bergholt artist Richard Stone.

It had a guide price of around £800 at an auction of the contents of Chilham Castle in Kent, which was owned by the late Tory donor Stuart Wheeler.

Alongside a photograph of Mr Wheeler and the former PM, the portrait sold for more than 50 times that amount.

Mr Stone said: "I was very, very pleasantly surprised.

"I painted, I think, six portraits in total of Margaret Thatcher and an earlier one was the commission to paint her portrait for Downing Street.

"I received the commission from Gordon Brown when he was Prime Minister. It hangs in what was her old office to this very day."

The auctioned portrait was painted by Mr Stone at the request of Baroness Anne Jenkin, to be sold off to raise money for Women2Win, a group leading the campaign to elect more Conservative women to Parliament.

Mr Stone said the sale of the portrait raised £256,000 for the cause.

The artist's numerous sittings with Baroness Thatcher led to a friendship which unveiled a "genuine, softer side to the Iron Lady".

"It was a friendship that grew very gradually, but based not on politics," he said.

"The conversation would revolve around home cooking, her childhood, our interest in books and how influential her father was in her youth.

"It would also take in her passion for poetry and her great memory for poetry - she would recite them at great length, she also enjoyed music enormously.

"The sittings were wonderful and I never actually wanted them to end.

"She was an incredibly likeable lady. It was a privilege to be able to share that side of her personality."

Joe Robinson, head of house sales and private collections at Dreweatts auctioneers, said: "Margaret Thatcher remains one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century with comparatively very few portraits of her completed and still with a large following.

"Richard Stone was a prolific portraitist known as being the youngest artist ever to gain a royal commission.

"It is likely that the BBC’s use of her late Majesty’s portrait, by Stone, for their coverage for the days following her death will not have been lost on the market."