Kate Middleton and Prince William Released a Previously Unseen Photo of Prince Louis

• Kate Middleton and Prince William (opens in new tab) released a new photo of their youngest son, Prince Louis, in a thank you letter to a royal well-wisher.
• Kate and William's office often send typed replies, accompanied by photos of the Cambridges, to fans who write to the royals.
• The new photo appears to have been taken during Louis' messy birthday photoshoot (opens in new tab) earlier this year.

New photo of Prince Louis alert! Kate Middleton and Prince William sent a previously unseen snap of their youngest son to a royal well-wisher, who sent birthday wishes to the littlest Cambridge earlier this year. Social media user @katsroyalletters, a collector of royal correspondence, shared the photo on Instagram, as well as a typed thank you letter from Kensington Palace. "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge appreciated your kind thought on writing to Prince Louis as you did on the occasion of his second birthday," the letter read. "This was greatly appreciated by Their Royal Highnesses who send you their best wishes."

The photo appears to have been taken by Kate during Prince Louis' second birthday photoshoot (opens in new tab), as he's wearing the same navy and white plaid shirt and standing in front of the same background. Unlike the previously released photos from the shoot, however, Louis isn't entirely covered in rainbow paints. Seems fair to assume the shot was taken before Kate brought out the finger paints, and things became very messy. 

In May, Kate appeared on British TV show This Morning (opens in new tab), and admitted that Louis wasn't the only one covered in paint after posing for his birthday portraits. "I should’ve taken a photograph of what I looked like after as well!" she revealed. "Luckily, that wasn’t documented but I was pretty much, I looked like Louis at the end of those."