DHAKA: An official photograph of Prince George with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge has been released ahead of their tour of Australia and New Zealand.

The eight-month-old is pictured in his mother’s arms while Prince William holds their dog, Lupo.

In the image, taken by royal christening photographer Jason Bell, the family is looking through an open window at their Kensington Palace home.

The Cambridges are due to arrive in New Zealand on 7 April, reports the BBC.

They then fly to Australia on 16 April and their three-week tour ends on 25 April.

In the new image, the blond baby prince is wearing a pale blue jumper bearing his name, while his mother wears a cream-coloured blouse and his father a shirt with rolled-up sleeves.

Prince George, who is third in line to the throne, is not looking directly at the camera like his parents, instead, he is smiling at the black cocker spaniel next to him.

Other than a glimpse of the curtains, little of the Cambridges’ renovated Kensington Palace home can be seen in the photograph.

It is the first official picture of Prince George to be released since his christening last October.

The visit to Australia and New Zealand will be his first official overseas tour. The trip echoes the Prince and Princess of Wales’s visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1983 when the couple took William, then aged nine months, with them.

BDST: 1711 HRS, MAR 30, 2014