Prince George’s birthday photo has been celebrated as "charming" by a veteran royal expert who explored the photo’s deep connection to Princess Kate.
The Prince and Princess of Wales shared a new photo of their eldest son to mark his 12th birthday on Tuesday.
The image, taken earlier this year in Norfolk by photographer Josh Shinner, showed George happily leaning on a fence post and beaming into the camera.
Accompanying the picture was the simple caption: "Happy 12th Birthday to Prince George!"
Instagram: Prince and Princess of Wales / Josh Shinner
|A 'charming' new photo of Prince George has been shared to mark his 12th birthday
Upon seeing the image for the first time, royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams exclaimed: "Oh, charming!"
He celebrated the image, and others like it shared previously, as a "charming way of keeping in touch with you royals as they grow up".
Fitzwilliams added that such updates were particularly successful as they did not "impinge on their privacy which, of course, is the pivotal thing".
Continuing to glow about the new picture, the expert said it presented George in a "bucolic" scene.
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|Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams believed to image connected with an “important theme” in Princess Kate’s life
To that end, Fitzwilliams believed that the image deliberately established a bridge with Princess Kate - even though she was not behind the camera for this particular picture.
The expert explained that the picture, which showed George wearing a classic countryside look of a shirt and sweater vest, demonstrated an continuation of an "important theme" of Kate’s life.
"Kate is very, very keen on nature and the outdoors," he began.
"That is a very important theme in her life at the moment," Fitzwilliams observed.
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|Kate has recently called nature as her 'sanctuary' as part of larger celebration of the outdoors
He added that the promotion of "young people" enjoying the outdoors was also a key message of the image.
In recent months, Kate has spoken repeatedly about the healing power she finds in nature.
"Over the past year, nature has been my sanctuary," the Princess of Wales reflected in the Spring instalment of a new royal video series titled Mother Nature.
Shared soon after the birthday image of George was a video showing the future King and his siblings, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
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Instagram: Prince and Princess of Wales,
|A video showing George and his siblings from the same day was also later shared
The video, captured at the same time as the photo, shows the three children laughing and playing together.
They are seen walking and holding hands as they giggle in front of the camera.
In one particularly amusing moment, George and Charlotte are seen carrying their younger brother.