Never-Before-Seen Portrait of Princess Diana's Mother Shows How Eerily Similar They Both Look

It is undeniable that Princess Diana was the epitome of beauty. Decades after her passing, she still comes to mind when asked about the most gorgeous women to exist in the past. So, where did she get it from? No point in guessing as the late Princess of Wales was a spitting image of her mother Frances Shand Kydd, and a rare portrait of her confirms the genes. 

Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, posted a never-seen-before hand-painted portrait of his late mother to his Instagram account. Alongside the photograph, which was neatly put in a gold-accented decorative frame, he wrote, "My mother - on this, her 85th birthday. She was born in Sandringham, Norfolk, on the very same day that King George V died - in the same parish. She died 3 days after the 50th anniversary of her marriage to my father. This portrait is to be found in the Library at @althorphouse." 

The image appeared to be an old portrait of Kydd, possibly from her younger days, in which she was looking off into the distance showing off her left profile. The late mother of Diana wore an off-shoulder blue gown. Upon closer look, the resemblance between the mother and daughter was uncanny, especially the bouncy blonde hair and bright blue eyes that Diana seemed to have inherited from her. 

Diana was born to John Spencer and Frances Shand Kydd on July 1, 1961, who were married in 1954 and then divorced 15 years later. John and Kydd gave birth to five children, three girls and two boys, one of whom died shortly after being born. Kydd was 18 years old when she exchanged vows with her husband at Westminster Abbey with the late Queen Elizabeth II in attendance. Back then, it was considered 'the social event of 1954,' as per the BBC.

However, during Diana's lifetime, her relationship wasn't pleasant with her parents, more so after the couple drifted apart as the marriage began to sour in 1967. "There was nothing either of us could do about it," said Kydd, according to The Telegraph, before their eventual divorce in 1969. The Spencer patriarch was granted full custody of his children, with two sisters being sent away to boarding schools while Diana and Charles stayed back with their father. 

But, things quickly an ugly turn after Spencer remarried Raine McCorquodale without informing his kids. Reportedly, Diana was so upset with the news that she literally smacked her father in the face, "I said, 'That's from all of us, for hurting us' and walked out and slammed the door," recalled the princess in video tapes recorded by a voice coach, per Daily Mail. Meanwhile, Diana had an equally troubled relationship with her mother. In another set of tape recordings to royal biographer Andrew Morton, Diana said, "My mother let me down terribly with the wedding. I didn't speak to her for three or four years afterward. She drove me mad… It was me that was being strong and her sobbing the whole time."