Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh Turns 60 — See the Stunning Portrait: 'She's a Trailblazer'

Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh is marking a milestone birthday!

She turned 60 on Jan. 20, and friends and former colleagues have been honoring her contribution to the royal family – amid the release of the duchess' stunning new portrait.

Sophie, who will be celebrating the milestone birthday privately at home at Bagshot Park, Surrey, with husband Prince Edward, also 60, was captured at the royal residence by photographer Christina Ebenezer.

In the beautiful portrait, Sophie is seen mid-laugh while sitting on a window ledge in a black turtleneck sweater and a white skirt.

Sophie is admired for her “steadfast” and quiet support of the late Queen Elizabeth II and now King Charles III in the new reality of a smaller coterie of working royals. With Prince Andrew and Prince Harry no longer working within the royal family, more attention has focused on Sophie and Edward in recent years. Indeed, it was Edward, who notably represented the royals and the U.K. in general at the funeral of the late President Jimmy Carter earlier in this month.

It was Sophie who volunteered at hospitals during the COVID pandemic, helping create and pack food for medics and other staff. And in addition to being the patron of more than 70 charities and organizations, Sophie has also gained particular attention for highlighting less obvious royal subjects, such as women who have been victims of gender-based violence in wartime.

One close source notes she was the first royal family member to go to Ukraine. “She is almost a trailblazer in the royal family,” a royal insider says.

She is the first member of the royal family “that I can remember who has talked about the menopause. Areas which have previously been ‘no-go’ she has embraced and championed,” the source says. “It is hugely appreciated by the voices who might not otherwise be heard or listened to.”

In Oct. 2023, she visited with some women in Ethiopia who had been displaced by war and were survivors of gender-based violence. And last March, she spoke movingly about the issue virtually at a conference held in Kyiv, Ukraine.

“Survivors here and around the world have spoken out so bravely about their experiences," she said at the time. "They are the most powerful advocates who remind us all that we must not turn our backs on the horrors of this crime. We must never forget the survivors."

She also champions work to boost eyesight health around the world, visiting clinics in Malawi, Africa and Bangladesh, among others.

Both Sophie and Edward are keenly aware of the future and the changing face of the royal family. Their children — daughter Lady Louise Windsor, 21, and son James, Earl of Wessex, 17 — are away at the University of St. Andrews and boarding school, respectively, and it is likely that they will have very different roles to their cousin, Prince William, and his wife, Kate Middleton, or their three children.

Sophie told The Sunday Times in 2020 that “we try to bring them up with the understanding that they are very likely to have to work for a living. Hence we made the decision not to use HRH titles. They have them and can decide to use them from 18, but it’s highly unlikely."

But they also relish the royal traditions, regularly joining in Trooping the Colour, while Lady Louise has enthusiastically taken up her late grandfather Prince Philip’s sport of carriage driving.

As the birthday kicked off, she received public good wishes from Kate Middleton and Prince William. She is close with the couple, sharing a festive outing with them and their children at the height of the pandemic and bonding at family occasions like Trooping the Colour. “Kate has that similar middle class background to Sophie,” remarks a royal insider. She is “incredibly warm, easy-going and loyal.”

The royal family site also added their well wishes to Sophie with a series of photos of the duchess accompanied by some birthday balloons.

Sophie also shared a close bond with the late Queen Elizabeth II and — aided by the proximity of her home Bagshot Park to Windsor — would regularly take her children up to Windsor Castle for teas and walks with the late monarch. (Notably, the last person to be Duchess of Edinburgh was the late Queen and, in a family where titles and their historical provenance are understood and keenly respected, that will have been seen as significant.) “She is known for going through public duties with no fuss and bother and, yet, still making a difference," the palace insider adds.

That was especially true during the COVID pandemic, when conditions and permissions allowed. It was during that period that Sophie, too, took a leading and hands-on role in helping out where she could. She joined kitchens preparing food for healthcare professionals. “The Countess has visited various kitchens on a weekly basis and has been involved in the preparation of the food, the cooking of the food and the packing of the food. She has been involved in the process all the way along," Sophie's friend Peregrine Armstrong-Jones, owner of the party planning business Bentley’s Entertainment, told PEOPLE at the time.

She was “involved in everything that goes on in the kitchen so the nurses can eat," Armstrong-Jones added. “When she leaves our kitchens she generally then goes on to do more projects in different hospitals. She just pops up in different places and just does things.”

Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more!

And Mags Mercer, chief executive of Hope Hub, where Sophie helped in Surrey, added, “You wouldn’t necessarily recognize her and wouldn’t expect someone like that to be delivering your food parcels. It was even nicer really that it wasn’t being done for the recognition but because she could genuinely help," she says.

“Afterwards, when we told the clients, they were blown away. They would say things like, ‘Oh no, I looked terrible that day,’ or ‘Wow, that’s amazing. How kind.’”

Read the original article on People