Queen praises ‘wonderful’ large Easter egg installed at Buckingham Palace

The Queen has praised a “wonderful” large decorated egg installed outside Buckingham Palace for an Easter egg hunt across London.

The blue and gold-painted work, titled Green Man Humpty Dumpty, is one of 123 giant decorated eggs hidden along a trail for charity.

Designer Alice Shirley said the King has “been a fan of my work for quite a long time”, and was gifted a leopard painting by her for his 70th birthday.

On Tuesday afternoon, she showed Camilla the egg installed in front of The King’s Gallery.

Two Coldstream Guards stood behind them in their red uniform and bearskin hats as a nod to the “King’s men” in the nursery rhyme.

Depicting Humpty Dumpty as a green man turns the line “all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again” into a reference about our collective responsibility to help restore the natural world, Ms Shirley said.

Camilla and the King commissioned her design for conservation charity Elephant Family’s The Big Egg Hunt, where people can win prizes by finding the two-foot pieces across London.

Its design was inspired by the monarchs’ love of nature and conservation.

‘Green Man Humpty Dumpty Egg’ outside The King’s Gallery (Yui Mok/PA)PA Wire/PA Images - Yui Mok

The Queen said to Ms Shirley “it’s looking wonderful already. It’s very lovely”, and added “well thank you very much”.

Ms Shirley told Camilla “it was an unusual phone call, yes” when the Royal Drawing School told her she was up for the job.

After Camilla departed, the artist said: “It’s the sort of commission you can’t say no to, and I said yes, of course, I’d be delighted.”

Camilla had told Ms Shirley the King would be “excited”.

Asked about the conversation, Ms Shirley said to reporters: “Yes, he’s been a fan of my work for quite a long time and I studied at the Royal Drawing School back in 2009.

“He has some of my pieces in his collection.

Two guardsmen with the egg (Yui Mok/PA)PA Wire/PA Images - Yui Mok

“He’s got a leopard that he was given for his 70th birthday, he’s got some of my drawings, because each year the King gets to choose some drawings by each of the alumni who leave the school, so he gets the pick of the favourites.”

He also has a gorilla ink drawing, she added.

“He’s been a huge support”, she said, adding that she had an exhibition in Buckingham Palace with the arts school.

Ms Shirley’s brief was a Humpty Dumpty egg and she suggested a green man version.

“They said that is perfect, because the coronation, the Royal coronation invitation, had a Green Man on it – not by me, but by another artist”, she told reporters.

“And they said thematically that will tie in really beautifully with the idea of spring and regeneration and new life.

“I tried to do it in a very sort of ornate decorative style.”

It has a blue face with green and golden eyes and a gold beard.

Blue and gold hands stretch around either side and there are leaves and stars painted across the shell.

The panel beneath read: “All the King’s horses, and all the King’s men, couldn’t put the Green Man together again”.

At 7am, ahead of Camilla’s visit, the artist was outside The King’s Gallery carrying out repairs with gold leaf.

The egg had been chipped and broken after it was placed outside the Palace on March 27.

Ms Shirley said: “You can put do not touch on something and everyone was touching it.”

The Queen meets Hilary Thomas and Alice Shirley (Yui Mok/PA)PA Wire/PA Images - Yui Mok

Camilla’s late brother, Mark Shand, founded the Elephant Family which supports wildlife and surrounding communities in Asia, by working in partnership with conservation experts on the ground.

On Tuesday afternoon, more than 14,000 people had downloaded The Big Egg Hunt app and £16,430 had been raised.

The trail will continue until April 27 when the pieces will be auctioned off.