Protesters have smeared chocolate cake over a waxwork of the King in the latest vandalism of public art by climate campaigners.

The lifelike royal display in Madame Tussauds in London was targeted by two members of the group Just Stop Oil.

The pair stood at the podium housing waxworks of the royal family, including the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Queen Consort.

The activists removed their black top layers of clothing to reveal white ‘Just Stop Oil’ T-shirts.

Then they took turns smearing a square of creamy cake onto the face of the King as bystanders cried out ‘Stop’.

The activists told those watching inside the museum that it was “time for action” in their demand for the British government to stop new oil and gas licenses.

Claude Monet’s Haystacks in the Museum Barberini. Photo: Getty

London police said four people had been arrested and charged for criminal damage.

“We responded quickly to an incident at Madame Tussauds after two people threw food at a statue at approximately 10.50hrs,” London’s Metropolitan Police tweeted.

“Four people have been arrested for criminal damage related to this incident.”

The incident was the latest in a series of recent attacks on prized works of art across Europe by activist groups drawing attention to climate-related issues.

On Sunday (local time), protesters threw mashed potato at Claude Monet’s Haystacks masterpiece in the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, Germany.

Two protesters threw tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s 1888 painting Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London.

Earlier in October, Just Stop Oil protesters threw two cans of Heinz tomato soup over one of the most famous paintings in the world, Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

The famed still life in London’s National Gallery was behind glass, so it wasn’t damaged.

The stunt shocked people worldwide and sparked a proposed crackdown on climate activists from the British parliament.

Just Stop Oil is a coalition of groups working to change British policies on fossil fuels.

Their goal is to “ensure that the government commits to ending all new licences and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK”.

The group says it will use non-violent civil resistance tactics, such as strikes, boycotts and mass protests, to target Britain’s oil and gas infrastructure to force policy-makers to meet their demands.