The sons of the late screen star Audrey Hepburn are lending 35 photographs of their mother to a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Some of the snaps of the actress, which include pictures taken before she was famous, have never been seen in the UK before.

The exhibition strives to go behind the scenes and give us rare insights into the making of Audrey Hepburn

Photographs include Hepburn performing a dance recital at the age of 13, the star on location in Africa while filming The Nun’s Story and a behind-the-scenes image of Hepburn in costume during a fitting for her title role in Sabrina.

The earliest lent by Hepburn’s sons, Sean Hepburn Ferrer and Luca Dotti, were taken when the actress was just nine while the most recent is from her last major photo shot in 1991.

Hepburn performing a dance recital at the age of 13 in 1942. Photo: Manon van Suchtelen /Audrey Hepburn Estate Collection/National Portrait Gallery/ PA Wire

Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon follows the star’s early years in the Netherlands, her life as a dancer and chorus girl in London’s West End, her rise to fame and her later philanthropic work. Other photographs show her in her dressing room on Broadway for Gigi, in Italy while filming War and Peace, publicity snaps for Funny Face and Terry O’Neill’s photographs taken during the making of films How to Steal a Million and Two For the Road.

The exhibition also includes Life magazine’s cover of Hepburn dressed in Givenchy for her role in Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961, original film stills and ephemera.

Dotti said: “We are thrilled to be able to support this comprehensive and beautifully-curated exhibition dedicated to our mother as it allows me and my brother Sean to grasp fragments of an otherwise unreachable past.

“The experience is all the more rewarding as the exhibition strives to go behind the scenes and give us rare insights into the making of Audrey Hepburn, from her London debut and her rise to stardom in the 1950s and 1960s, to the last season of her life. She would be honoured to have an exhibition dedicated to her at the National Portrait Gallery. And glad to be back home.”

Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon runs from July 2 to October 18.