Émile Chambon · 5 min read
A falcon and an egg, two arrested presences
The Falcon and the Ostrich Egg of 1974 brings together two elements associated with birds. The work allows us to question how a collection and a painting retain forms without confusing their histories.
Published on October 3, 2026
A falcon and an ostrich egg do not meet in the title as two similar animals. One is named by the species to which it belongs; the other by a form associated with birth and by the bird to which it relates. Émile Chambon brings them together in a painting of 1974. This pair of words invites us to look at different presences united in a single artistic object. The painting does not ask us to invent a natural scene: it proposes a proximity that painting has chosen to preserve.
The Fondation Émile Chambon identifies an oil on cardboard. This information reminds us that the work has a reality distinct from the elements it represents. We have a painted surface, with a support and a date, rather than a falcon or an egg materially available before us. This distinction seems obvious, but helps slow overly rapid recognition. After understanding the title, visitors can return to the image and consider how objects or forms associated with the living world take their place in a material that does not possess their movement.
Chambon’s documented collection also includes a falcon mummy. This object’s presence gives an interesting context, but does not allow us to claim that we have identified the painting’s exact model. The consulted entries do not explicitly make this connection. We must therefore let the distinction between association and proof remain. We can observe that a painter who collects is interested in varied forms; we cannot assign each painting a specific object from his collection without following the documents establishing that relationship.
Such a subject can hold attention on what remains of a living being in a preserved form. This question does not require a complete scientific explanation of the egg or of mummification. It concerns the gaze first. The elements named in the title can be thought of through movement, growth or flight, while painting holds them in a fixed image. The contrast opens a possible reading, but must not become a definitive message attributed to Chambon. The surface can sustain other relationships that we will discover by looking at it.
The word ostrich adds another presence evoked by the egg without necessarily showing the entire bird. A part or a product can make an animal exist in our thoughts. Painting often works with this capacity for association. We recognise signs and connect them to something not entirely present in the image. The title accompanies this operation by naming what the eye might otherwise leave less determined. It does not replace the forms; it proposes a link from which our attention can circulate between the elements brought together.
The year 1974 provides a reference point in an already long career. It would nevertheless be excessive to read the painting as a general explanation of the painter’s old age or his relationship to death. The objects can provoke such associations in a visitor; they do not automatically become biographical facts. The account benefits from retaining their status as possible readings. We know that a work exists, bears a title and is dated. Starting with this information, our experience can develop without claiming to possess the artist’s exact thoughts.
The proximity between collecting and painting also allows us to reflect on two ways of retaining things. A collection preserves objects with their materials and, when documented, their provenances. A painting chooses an appearance and constructs it on another surface. These two operations can coexist in an artist’s life, but are not identical. The Fondation gives access to traces of each. Visitors can then look at the painting and recognise that around it exists an environment of objects whose material history deserves its own attention.
The falcon and egg finally remain united within the work’s particular time. Our gaze can pass from one to the other, reflect on their difference and return to what painting makes of their presence. We do not need to recount an impossible encounter in nature to give the subject depth. Chambon has already constructed an association. The account can do it justice by distinguishing facts, preserved objects and visitors’ associations. Two elements arrested on a surface then become the starting point of attention that continues to move.
