By Chantal Da Silva -
NBC News
A rare portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in 1997, sold for more than $200,000 on Thursday - 10 times its highest estimate, Sotheby's auction house in New York confirmed.
The oil on canvas was painted by the late American artist Nelson Shanks and shows
a pensive Diana
, looking to her right side as if deep in thought.
The painting was expected to sell for between $15,000 and $20,000, but was auctioned for $201,600 more than the estimated asking price, Sotheby's reported.
The portrait of Princess Diana was made by the American painter Nelson Shanks. Sotheby's / NBC News
This painting, which is a study of the princess's head, was completed during the
more than 35 hours of sessions
that Diana had in 1994 for a full-length portrait.
The portrait originally hung at Kensington Palace in the UK, but now hangs in an ancestral home in Althorp, Northamptonshire, Sotheby's said.
In the full body piece for which Diana underwent more than 30 sessions, the princess is painted in a white blouse.
The recently auctioned painting instead shows her in Shank's original outfit of choice:
a strappy green dress
by Catherine Walker.
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The final portrait, which shows Diana with a similarly thoughtful expression, "reflects the emotional charge involved in the princess's public life in the mid-1990s, but also her inner strength," according to Sotheby's.
The terms of Princess Diana's divorce from Prince Charles were finalized in 1996, after an eventful year.
In August 1997, 'Lady Di' died from her serious injuries as a result of a car accident,
after
paparazzi
chased her.
During her sessions with Shanks, the 'People's Princess', as she was known, struck up a friendship with the painter and his wife.
In a letter to the artist, Diana said she missed their time together, writing: "I miss you and Leona in London. Going to the studio was a safe haven, so full of love and support," Sotheby's said.
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A photo taken during one of the sessions shows
Princess Diana smiling
as Shank paints her portrait at the Tite Street studio in London.
Shanks died at the age of 77 in August 2015, after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
He was recognized for his famous portrait of Diana, as well as for having painted a picture of former President Bill Clinton, among other leaders such as Pope John Paul II, former President Ronald Reagan,
Margaret Thatcher and Luciano Pavarotti.
In the months before his death, Shanks revealed that his portrait of Clinton contained a hidden message.
The painter confessed that a shadow to the right of Clinton was a nod to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
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The shadow was from a blue dress that the artist said he put on a mannequin in 2005 while working on the painting.
Shanks, who had referred to Clinton as "the most famous liar of all time," said he could never get the Monica Lewinsky scandal out of his mind.
"I was aware that it was a blue dress, and that it had a certain echo, let's say, of
some story that we know
," Shanks told our sister network NBC News after revealing his secret.