Queen Camilla was on the hunt Tuesday—for eggs!
Specifically, the Queen was looking for a two-foot-tall egg that she and King Charles had commissioned for The Big Egg Hunt 2025, an initiative of the Elephant Family, of which they are joint patrons.
Queen Camilla and King Charles commissioned an oversized egg painted by Alice Shirley that is named ‘Green Man Humpty Dumpty Egg’ and is on view outside The King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace.
According to the Palace, the ‘Green Man’ egg’s design celebrates the natural world and was inspired by the King and Queen’s “love of nature and conservation.”
The Big Egg Hunt brings together over 100 donors who have commissioned oversized eggs that will be scattered all over the London cityscape to raise money for the Elephant Family’s charitable endeavours.
The Elephant Family posted on their website: “With the likes of Anya Hindmarch, LUAP, Fortnum & Mason, Chopard, Philip Colbert, Duncan Campbell & Charlotte Rey involved, this amalgamation of talented creators guarantees a spectacle for the whole City to enjoy, for the purposes of raising money for important conservation work through an auction of these wonderful egg sculptures.”
The Queen met with Shirley outside The King’s Gallery, and told her “It’s absolutely beautiful, I loved the idea.” She also met with representatives from the Elephant Family, and brought two Coldstream Guardsmen with her, as a tribute to the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme line about the ‘King’s men.’
Shirley told the Queen how King Charles—who has been scaling back his workload following a brief hospitalisation at the end of last week—has always been a great supporter of her work, and confessed that when the commission came to work on the egg, she couldn’t turn it down.
“lt’s the kind of commission you can’t say no to,” she told the Queen, also describing how the green men from English folklore, which also appeared on the King and Queen’s the coronation invitations in 2023, inspired her design alongside the nursery rhyme.
Queen Camilla’s late brother, Mark Shand, founded the charity in 2002 with the mission to protect the endangered Asian elephant and preserve its natural habitat.
