Prince Harry and Prince William have commissioned a statue of their mother Princess Diana to be installed on what would have been her 60th birthday.
The statue will mark the legacy that their mother left and the lives she touched.
“Our mother touched so many lives. We hope the statue will help all those who visit Kensington Palace to reflect on her life and her legacy,” her sons said in a statement.
The statue was created by artist Ian Rank-Broadley, who is responsible for the portrait of the Queen which has featured on all U.K. coins since 1998.
Originally announced in 2017 the project was put on hold amid the pandemic but the installation will now take place in the Sunken Garden of Kensington Palace on 1 July 2021.
Monday will mark 23 years since Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris when she was 36 years old. Her sons were just 15 and 12 years old at the time.
Princess Diana’s glamor and activism made her a global icon and earned her the title of the “People’s princess”. She championed causes that campaigned for animal protection and were against the use of landmines.
She was patroness of organizations which worked with the homeless and drug addicts and even worked with nonprofits outside the realm of traditional royal involvement such as those helping AIDS and leprosy sufferers.
The Dukes said this was the right time to recognize their mother’s positive impact “in the U.K. and around the world.
“We want to make sure that there’s something that she’s remembered by and there’s certainly not enough on the right scale in London or anywhere in the U.K. that she’s remembered for,” Prince Harry told HELLO! magazine in a 2016 interview.
He added: “Something needs to be put in stone or in place as a memory. Lots of people still talk about her. Every single day we still think about her, so it would be very fitting on the 20th anniversary to have something that is going to last forever and is actually a proper recognition of what she did when she was alive.”
I couldn’t agree more. We lost this wonderful human being too soon and my heart goes out to her two boys.
Please share to pay tribute to the amazing work she did to highlight those underrepresented causes.
