Rare portrait of Princess Diana sells for $201,600 – more than 10 times the expected price

A rare portrait of Princess Diana sold for a whopping $201,600 – more than 10 times the expected price, Sotheby’s announced Friday.

The oil painting, which is a head study, by the late American artist Nelson Shanks was done in 1994, three years before her death.

‘Diana, Princess of Wales’ was expected to fetch up to $20,000, according to the auction house. 

Diana is shown in a green halter dress by designer Catherine Walker. She has earrings on and her eyes are glancing downward. The head study was created during the beginning of a larger full-length portrait, with artists occasionally using such head studies to gather details and perspectives on the subject’s face.

Diana sat for more than 35 hours for a commissioned full-length portrait, which originally hung in Kensington Palace and now resides in her ancestral home in Althorp in Northamptonshire, the auction house stated.

Shanks painted a second full-length version of the portrait of Diana from memory in 2010. 

‘Diana, Princess of Wales,’ pictured, was expected to fetch up to $20,000 but it sold for $201,600, according to Sotheby’s

A full-sized portrait of Princess Diana by American artist Nelson Shanks

Pictured: Artist Nelson Shanks painting Princess Diana in 1994, three years before her tragic death

Pennsylvania artist Nelson Shanks stands next to his portrait of Pope John Paul II (died April 2005) at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia on January 6, 2003

Diana developed a friendship with Shanks and his wife Leona during her more than 30 sittings with the artist, and in a letter, later lamented that she no longer saw them regularly in London.

‘I do miss you and Leona in London, as coming to the Studio was a safe haven, so full of support and love,’ she wrote, according to Sotheby’s.  

The portrait shows Princess Diana’s face bearing a ‘thoughtful expression’ and ‘downcast eyes,’ which were similarly included in her full length-portrait. 

The dress was later changed to a white blouse for the final, larger project, according to Sotheby’s. 

The auction house describes the final portrait as reflecting ‘the emotional toll of Diana’s public life in the mid-1990s, but also her inner-resilience.’ 

Pictured: The Princess Of Wales visits Washington Gala Charity Dinner in 1996

Diana, the Princess Of Wales visits Washington Gala Dinner, left, and visiting the Royal Brompton Hospital to meet Cystic Fibrosis sufferers, right, both in 1997

Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles had already fallen apart by 1994. The next year, she famously revealed the breaking point of the once-dream marriage during an interview with the BBC.

‘There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,’ she said at the time, referring to Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, the current Duchess of Cornwall. 

Diana added that she had been with ‘with a husband who loved someone else.’

Her divorce to Charles was finalized in 1996 following four years of separation and endless tabloid coverage.

However, the paparazzi’s nonstop pursuit of the beloved princess led to her death the following year when the car she was riding in crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris.

Shanks went on to famously paint the official presidential portraits of Bill Clinton, pictured, for the National Portrait Gallery

Shanks also painted the official presidential portrait of Ronald Reagan, pictured

Shanks was a painter, teacher and art historian influential in the revival of Classical Realism in the United States.

His portraits of royalty, politicians and celebrities added to his international profile as one of the foremost contemporary figurative painters. 

He painted the official presidential portraits of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton for the National Portrait Gallery before dying of cancer at the age of 77 in 2015.

In the Clinton portrait, he even added a salacious Easter egg by including a not-so-subtle reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which led to Clinton getting impeached. 

‘If you look at the left-hand side of it there’s a mantle in the Oval Office and I put a shadow coming into the painting and it does two things,’ he told NPR.

‘It actually literally represents a shadow from a blue dress that I had on a mannequin, that I had there while I was painting it, but not when he was there. It is also a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held, or on him.’