The royal women of the Netherlands were ready for their close up! The Dutch Royal House released new portraits of Queen Maxima and her three daughters — Princesses Catharina-Amalia, Alexia and Ariane — on September 30. The gorgeous headshots were taken by photographer Erwin Olaf on April 18, 2017 to mark King Willem-Alexander’s 50th birthday (April 27).
The monarch’s wife, 46, and children posed for the portraits smiling directly at the camera, while their hair blew around them. Earlier this year, the royal dad-of-three opened up about Queen Maxima, who he married in 2002. He said, “We are just getting started, we’ve only been together 18 years. We can be happy together for a long time. She is critical but also caring and forgiving when I am capricious. She is a very special woman, and I am very fortunate to have met her.”
Meanwhile, the Dutch King called his daughters— Amalia, 13, Alexia, 12, and Ariane, ten — his “radiant ladies.” Back in April, King Willem-Alexander admitted that he wants his firstborn, Amalia, to find herself before one day taking the throne. “You must first get to know yourself through and through. That's what I am constantly emphasizing with Amalia,” he told Dutch author Wilfried de Jong.
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He added, "I keep saying: know your own limits. Go everywhere. Make mistakes, as far as possible out of the eyes of the public. I did that, a lot. Festivals, parties everything and more — find your boundaries. It is a good thing to do, without doing it in the public domain."