- Inventory number
- The Boy with the Thorn "The Spinario"
- First half of the Seventeenth Century
- 73 cm x 45 cm x 55 cm - 165 kg
- Human Figure
- On display
- Royal Collection (Royal Alcázar Palace, Madrid, “galería de Poniente”, 1700, n. 72; New Royal Palace, Madrid, 1747, n. 16).
A copy of the famous Hellenistic bronze —there is a Roman copy in the Capitolino Museum in Rome— representing a nude boy pulling a thorn out of his foot. The soft modeling, orderly arrangement of his hair and inexpressive face faithfully follow the Roman model.
In the seventeenth century it was popularly said that the sculpture was commissioned by the Roman Senate in homage to a shepherd named Martius, who carried a message with such diligence that he only stopped to remove a thorn after he had finished his mission.
This cast, made by Cesare Sebastian, was commissioned in 1650 by Velázquez in Rome for the decoration of Madrid's Alcázar Palace and remained in the Royal Collection until it entered the Prado Museum.