Spinario
A boy taking a thorn out of his foot.
The sculpture is probably a Roman pastiche, combining a Hellenistic-style body with an Archaic-style head. It is possible that the head really is Archaic, fitted onto the much later Roman body, especially as the hair does not hang naturally.
The bronze was first recorded at an unusually early date, 1167, outside the Lateran Palace in Rome. It was one of many sculptures captured in the Napoleonic Wars and triumphantly paraded upon its arrival in Paris, only to be repatriated to Rome in 1816
Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Sala dei Trionfi 2
Transferred in 1884 from the Fitzwilliam Museum
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 387 (n.6)
Rhys Carpenter: Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome XVIII (1941), 35, pl. 15
Stuart-Jones: Catalogue of the Conservatori Palace (1926), 43, no.2
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 79, no.372
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 894, no.436a
Richter: Ancient Italy, 50
First recorded at an unusually early date, 1167, outside the Lateran Palace in Rome