Diana of Wales: Why does the statue appear with three children?
The sculpture was made in honor of the deceased princess who would be turning 60 today.
Princes Guillermo and Enrique gave a truce in the middle of their stormy relationship to unveil together this Thursday in Kensington Gardens, in London, a statue in honor of her mother, Diana of Wales, who would turn 60 today.
The long-awaited sculpture, commissioned and financed by the princes, will preside from now the Sunken Garden, one of the ill-fated Lady Di's favorite corners when she lived in Kensington Palace, on the edge of Hyde Park.
The bronze statue, which is 1.25 times life-size, shows Diana surrounded by three children to symbolize the "universality and generational impact of the princess's work," Kensington Palace said in a statement.
Lady Di's style of dress in the sculpture is based on what she wore in the last years of her life, when she "gained confidence in her role as an ambassador for humanitarian causes."
In addition to Guillermo and Enrique, the ceremony to discover the memorial brought together members of Diana's close family, such as some of her siblings, who headed a reduced guest list due to the demands of the covid-19. .
Their absence was conspicuous by Queen Elizabeth II, the Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex and Prince Charles, heir to the throne, who refused to attend the event in order "not to reopen old wounds," according to a friend of his. .
For the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex, the statue is a "symbol of the life and legacy" of their mother, whose "love, strength and character" made her "a force for good throughout the world" , as they assured in a statement.
"Every day we wish that she was still with us," said the princes, who thanked the support of all the people around the world who keep Diana's memory alive.
Leaving aside their differences, Guillermo and Enrique granted each other a ceasefire for the occasion to meet in an intimate family moment of remembrance to their mother, who died on August 31, 1997 in a traffic accident in Paris when she was fleeing from the paparazzi.
The relationship between the brothers, who last saw each other in April for the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral, is going through low hours, weighed down by the tail-blows of the controversial March interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which Meghan Markle accused the British crown. of racism and of perpetuating lies about Enrique and her.
Diana's memorial, near a cobblestone engraved with an extract from the poem "The Measure of a Man", is the work of the author of the effigy of Elizabeth II that appears on British coins, the sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley, who attended the ceremony with Pip Morrison, who was in charge of the flowerbed design.
MORE THAN 4000 FLOWERS FOR DIANA
The new landscape of the chameleonic Sunken Garden, converted for the occasion into a mosaic with more than 4,000 flowers, is the result of more than a thousand hours of work by a team of five gardeners led by Graham Dillamore, Deputy Director of Gardens and Estates at Historic Royal Palaces.
"While residing at Kensington Palace, Diana, Princess of Wales, regularly admired the changing flower displays in the Sunken Garden and always stopped to talk to me and the other gardeners who cared for it," Dillamore recalled in a note released by the Royal residence.
Among the plants that surround the new statue of the gardens Kensington, perched at the top of three steps, are some of Diana's favorite flowers, such as forget-me-nots, accompanied by half a thousand of lavender plants, 300 tulips, 200 roses and a hundred dahlias, among others.
It is not the first time that the Sunken Garden, created in 1908 at the request of Edward VII, is dressed up to pay tribute to Lady Di: when the 20 years of that fateful August 31 were completed, the flower beds were filled with flowers of tonality. cake, emulating the unmistakable style of the princess.
