This highly emotive work of Diana, Princess of Wales was painted from life in 1994 and can rightly be described as the most affecting painted portrait of the ‘People’s Princess’.
This painting is a preparatory work for a later official portrait which is now at Althorp House.
The sittings for this portrait took place at a critical moment in Diana’s personal life, and over the course of thirty sittings and thirty-five hours, Nelson Shanks’ London studio became a place of solace and refuge for Diana.
Diana became close friends with both the artist and his wife, Leona and later confided in a letter to Nelson and Leona that ‘…coming to the studio was a safe haven, so full of love and support.’
Perhaps through these formed friendships, Shanks was able to capture both Diana’s personal identity and her celebrity. Through Diana’s strikingly honest expression Shanks has captured her private being as much as her celebrity whilst she sits in her world-famous Catherine Walker halter-neck dress.