Princess Charlotte has celebrated her 11th birthday with a new photograph and video released by Kensington Palace, showing the young royal enjoying the Easter break in Cornwall with her family in a rare and warm glimpse behind the scenes of royal family life.
The birthday portrait, taken by photographer Matt Porteous during the family’s Cornish holiday, shows Charlotte smiling in a sunny field wearing a black and red striped jumper with blue jeans. A video posted hours later captured a series of candid moments from the same trip — Charlotte bowling a cricket ball, patting the family’s two spaniels Orla and Otto, and writing a message in the sand using white shells.
Kensington Palace shared the footage on social media with the caption: “Thank you for the lovely birthday messages for Princess Charlotte, 11 today!”
The birthday content comes just 24 hours after the Prince and Princess of Wales marked their own milestone — their 15th wedding anniversary — with a family portrait also shot by Porteous during the Cornwall break, showing William and Catherine relaxing in the grass surrounded by their three children and both dogs.
Porteous, who is based in Jersey, has built a longstanding relationship with the Wales family. His royal commissions have included behind-the-scenes moments from Prince Louis’s christening, Christmas card portraits and a series of informal family images that have become a signature part of how the family chooses to present itself publicly.
Charlotte — formally Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Wales — was born on 2 May 2015 at 8.43am at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. As a granddaughter of King Charles, she is third in line to the throne, behind her father the Prince of Wales and her elder brother Prince George, 12. Her younger brother Prince Louis is eight.
She was last seen in public at the Royal Family’s Easter Sunday church service in Windsor, where she was photographed smiling and waving to crowds. The day before Charlotte’s birthday, Kensington Palace also celebrated the first birthday of the family’s younger spaniel Otto, sharing a photograph of the brown dog sitting in a field in Cornwall with the caption: “Welcome to the family, Otto! 1 today.”
