 |
In the early 1990's several London art dealers raised private funds to commission a serious portrait of the Princess of Wales from the American portrait artist Nelson Shanks, who scheduled the sittings for the summer and fall of 1994, when he would be in London, also painting Margaret Thatcher for the National Portrait Gallery. After several preliminary sketches, his concept began to center on something green around her neck, and Diana volunteered the Queen Mary emerald choker.
The search then went on for the rest of the outfit. He wanted to show off the necklace with a plain white blouse, and as 'New Jersey Life' magazine wrote in December 2000, "It took days for him to come up with the outfit for Diana as the two of them rummaged through her closets at Kensington Palace, which were, according to Shanks, 'as big as Grand Central Station." He finally settled on a diaphonous full collared blouse by Tomasz Starzewski, and according to the catalog for the exhibit 'Yanks Paint Brits' (in which this portrait was first publicly shown, in 1996) the 'skirt' was actually a length of green taffeta that Catherine Walker came in and draped to his direction. Photographs (below)of the sitting (taken by Shanks' wife) show the draped fabric on a mannequin, and Diana posing next to it in the blouse and - well - her underwear.The fact that she's wearing a slip indicates she may have been wearing the casual shell and skirt in which papparazzi once captured her leaving the studio.
Again per the catalog, the artist wanted "to capture a sense of royalty without all the formal accoutrements" and unlike many portraits that feature pictures, books, or other symbols of the sitter's life, "the young Princess of Wales is shown against a simple background . . . with a line to the left suggesting a door that could be opened." Perhaps this was the artist's way of symbolizing her situation at the time - the 'time and space' period when she had withdrawn from public life and was trying to sort herself out, find her priorties, and open that door to a new life. |
