Prince Louis delivers toothless grin in new birthday portrait
By Victoria Ward
Prince Louis was filmed leaping off a log and pressing his face up against the camera during his seventh birthday portrait shoot.
Prince Louis poses for a portrait on his seventh birthday.Credit: Josh Shinner
The young prince, who turned seven on Wednesday, suggested to photographer Josh Shinner: “I can jump down from here”, gesturing to a fallen tree.
In the 20-second video montage, Louis occasionally glanced directly at the camera to offer a cheeky, gap-toothed smile and at one point shrugged his shoulders with a shy grin.
After leaping off the fallen tree trunk, he landed with both feet, using one hand to steady himself on the ground before standing up proudly and smiling for the camera.
The footage, filmed by the Kensington Palace social media team, was posted online several hours after the Prince and Princess of Wales released their favoured portrait of their youngest son to mark his birthday.
Beaming for the camera, Louis, who has lost both of his top front teeth, is perched on a tree trunk wearing a white checked shirt and v-necked green jumper.
The portrait was taken in Norfolk woodland earlier this month by Shinner.
It was posted on the family’s social media profiles with the caption: “Wishing Prince Louis a very Happy 7th Birthday!” alongside a birthday cake emoji.
The young prince is thought to be spending the day at home with his parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and his elder siblings, Prince George, 11, and Princess Charlotte, nine.
The children are enjoying the last day of their Easter holidays before returning to school on Thursday.
The family has spent much of the break at Anmer Hall, their home on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk. They attended the Easter Sunday service at the nearby St Mary Magdalene Church with the Princess’ parents, Michael and Carole Middleton.
Prince Louis, affectionately dubbed “Loubug” by his parents, is fourth in line to the throne.
He was born on St George’s Day, April 23, 2018, in the private Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London, weighing 3.8 kilograms.
He was christened Louis Arthur Charles by Justin Welby, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace.
The young prince has won the nation over with his cheeky antics at public events and is often pictured cavorting around enjoying himself.
He is currently in Year 2 at Lambrook School, near the family’s Windsor home.
He was last seen in public on Christmas Day at Sandringham.
In February, artwork by Catherine, Princess of Wales and her three children was published on the family’s Instagram account to promote her work on the importance of early childhood.
Prince Louis used bold red lines to paint his mother with a frizzy orange fringe, or frown lines.
The Princess revealed in 2019 that the night before the children’s birthdays she always stays up late as she concocts their birthday cake.
“I love making the cake,” she told Mary Berry during a BBC special, A Berry Royal Christmas.
“It’s become a bit of a tradition that I stay up till midnight with ridiculous amounts of cake mix and icing and I make far too much. But I love it.”
Shinner took the black-and white-family portrait released as the Wales’ Christmas card in 2023.
The Telegraph
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