This bronze sculpture of a human figure represents an epic story in Lithuanian folklore. The theme of transformation or motion for this sculpture is from the story of Egle the Queen of Serpents published in 1837 by M. Jasewicz and is a well-known Lithuanian fairy tale. 

Scholars have very briefly summarised this epic story or fairy tale to mean; humans rule the land while snakes rule the water and a loss of boundaries between a ‘snake’ husband and a ‘tree’ woman allows for the sacrificial loss or death of the snake in water for a return to natural order. This mythological story takes on further meanings when imagining people in the natural world and the attachments or issues within families and cultures. 

This piece in bronze, ivory and granite, was created by the well-known contemporary Lithuanian artist Stanislovas Kuzma (1947 – 2012). The piece blends the stiff transformation of the figure into a tree. The artist signed the sculpture in 1995. The artist himself said: “the theme of Egle has kept me interested for many years, this drama of herself, her husband Zilvinas and their children: …changes of feeling and form, the miraculous metamorphosis of a woman into a tree.”

In commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations, the President of Lithuania, Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas (1932 – 2010), presented to this gift to the United Nations and it was accepted by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922 – 2016) in 1995.