Unseen Fan Photos of the Royals Are Going on Display at Kensington Palace

This is kinda cool.

Diana In Kensington Palace
(Image credit: Photo by Tim Graham / Getty)

From today, July 6, a new set of previously unseen photos of the Royal Family will be on display at Kensington Palace.

These photos were submitted by members of the public for feature in the exhibition "Life Through a Royal Lens," which opened in March.

These 25 new photos include a heartwarming one of Kate Middleton leaning down to speak to a child at Christmas in Sandringham in 2014. The amateur photographer, London-based Amy, told the Daily Mail of capturing the moment, "I've often been to Sandringham with my aunt to see the royals on Christmas Day as my family lives nearby in Lincolnshire."

Amy added, "Kate was asking a young girl about her Christmas dinner plans and had been given so many flowers she could barely hold them all.

"It was so worth getting up early and standing in the cold to take this photo, which I think shows Kate's natural warmth and affinity towards children."

The Royal Family Attend Church On Christmas Day

(Image credit: Photo by Chris Jackson / Getty)

Other photos include a black and white one of Prince Charles playing polo, one of the Queen and Prince Philip waving to crowds from a car during the Silver Jubilee in 1977, and one of the Queen and Princess Anne at Royal Ascot in 2018.

These 25 photos will replace the 25 public-submitted photos originally included through a digital display as part of the exhibition. The 50 images were curated from a selection of close to 1,000 pictures submitted by royal fans around the world. These had to be taken during walkabouts and official engagements, and could not be taken from private moments.

These fan photos are exhibited alongside a selection of very special photographs taken by the likes of legendary artists Annie Leibovitz and Cecil Beaton. A previously unseen photo of Princess Diana taken by David Bailey notably features as part of the exhibition, which runs through Oct. 30.

Speaking about that beautiful image, museum curator Claudia Acott Williams previously told Marie Claire, "It was really interesting, because when I was researching it, quite a number of photographers were suggested to her, people like Norman Parkinson, who was a much more established photographer and somebody you might expect to take a picture of a member of the Royal Family. But it was the Princess of Wales who actually wanted to be photographed by David Bailey, who at the time was a really surprising choice."

Williams added, "Obviously the Queen later sat for him too, but at this point he was a quite irreverent, edgy, counter-culture type figure, who was an odd one, or an unexpected one to make a formal royal portrait. I think that says a lot about [Diana's] spirit and maybe her desire to want to present herself differently, and establish herself differently."

Iris Goldsztajn
Morning Editor

Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Bustle and Shape. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.