Spain's Culture ministry has paid €30,757 for the only original of the poem 'Crucifixión' by Federico García Lorca at an auction at Sotheby's in London this morning.

The poem mysteriously went missing for a number of years, which meant that it was not included in early editions of the 'Poeta en Nueva York' collection to which it belongs, and was not published for the first time until its reappearance in 1950 when fellow poet, Agustín Miralles, published it in the 'Planas' poetry magazine.

The unique manuscript is dated the 18th October 1929 and was written in New York.

A Sotheby's spokesman revealed that the reserve price for the lot, which includes two typed letters signed by Lorca to his friend, Miguel Benítez, asking for the poem to be returned, and which was put up for auction by the family of Agustín Miralles, had been set at between €28,000-42,000 euros.

Federico García Lorca was born on the 5th June 1898 in Fuente Vaqueros (Granada) and became one of the 20th century's most influential dramatists and poets until he was cruelly executed by Franco's fascist militia on the 19th August 1936 for being a homosexual and for his left-wing political views.