Here's the follow-up to my earlier question:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=384737

I now have a photo, which can be seen at
http://membres.lycos.fr/dbky/Apteryx/JardinPlantesStatue.jpg

Can you identify the subject of this statue?

I am pricing this low because I have already paid for it once; but I
will tip the researcher who can tell me something I don't already know
toward identifying who is represented in this statue.  Best of all, of
course, would be a positive ID.  (Parisian researcher, how about
visiting the Jardin and Museum as a nice Sunday outing and seeing if
you can read what it says on the base?)  No credit for repeating
information that has already been supplied.

To be clear:  I am not so much interested in this particular piece of
statuary, its sculptor, dates, etc., as I am in knowing who it depicts
and what is the story that goes with this figure who is performing
this act of contemplation.

Thank you,
Archae0pteryx

ArchaeOpteryx --

The statue looks more like Herodotus than Ovid:
http://www.losttrails.com/media/Herodotus/athens35-30b.jpg

Herodotus had this, among other things, to say about eggs, although
the egg in question seems a little small to be a phoenix egg:

"73. There is also another sacred bird called the ph?nix which I did
not myself see except in painting, for in truth he comes to them very
rarely, at intervals, as the people of Heliopolis say, of five hundred
years; and these say that he comes regularly when his father dies; and
if he be like the painting, he is of this size and nature, that is to
say, some of his feathers are of gold colour and others red, and in
outline and size he is as nearly as possible like an eagle. This bird
they say (but I cannot believe the story) contrives as follows:?
setting forth from Arabia he conveys his father, they say, to the
temple of the Sun (Helios) plastered up in myrrh, and buries him in
the temple of the Sun; and he conveys him thus:?he forms first an egg
of myrrh as large as he is able to carry, and then he makes trial of
carrying it, and when he has made trial sufficiently, then he hollows
out the egg and places his father within it and plasters over with
other myrrh that part of the egg where he hollowed it out to put his
father in, and when his father is laid in it, it proves (they say) to
be of the same weight as it was; and after he has plastered it up, he
conveys the whole to Egypt to the temple of the Sun. Thus they say
that this bird does."

History of Herodotus: Book 2
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/h4m/chapter2.html

markj-ga

Archae0pteryx,
I have e-mailed the Natural History Museum in Paris and that's what
they have told me:

Monsieur,

La statue "Science et mystère" (que l'on appelle aussi "L'homme à l'oeuf"), 
à l'origine placée dans la galerie de Zoologie,
est signée "L. Schroeder" (prénoms Louis-Jean-Désiré), et datée "1890". 
Elle porte le numéro MNHN.657 dans l'inventaire des objets d'art du Muséum.
En ce qui concerne l'identité du philosophe représenté, si tant est qu'il y 
en ait une, je ne peux vous répondre.
Vous pourriez trouver des renseignements dans
Lami, Dict. Sculpt. Ec. Fr. 19è, 4, p.250
ou dans les catalogues des expositions suivantes :
Expo. Univ. 1889 n°2147, Salon 1890 n°4487
Salon 1886 n°4543 (pour le modèle en plâtre)

Avec mes cordiales salutations,


Marie-Pierre Leandri Morin

Translation:

Sir,
The statue "Science and mystery" (that we also call " The man with the
egg")was first placed in the Zoology gallery.
It is signed "L. Schroeder" (first names Louis-Jean-Desiré)and dated "1890".
The sattue's number is MNHN.657 in the inventory of art objects of the museum.
As what it concerns the identity of the philosopher represented, if it
has one, I can't answer you.
You can find the reference in
Lami.....Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française...
or in the catalogs of the following exhibitions:
........Exposition Universelle 1889
.........( for the model in plaster)
Best regards
Marie-Pierre Leandri Morin

Best regards
Luntes

Bravo, Luntes!  Merci, merci.  I should have thought of that myself,
but I didn't.    How nice to have the question answered!  I am in your
debt.

Since you are not a researcher, I can't thank you properly with a fee
and a tip.  But I can buy you a question.  If there's something you'd
like to ask a GA researcher for, let's say, $5.19, post it here, and I
will submit it as a question on my account.

Archae0pteryx