Boy with Thorn Bronze Sculpture

Boy with Thorn or Spinario (1st c. BC) is a Roman bronze sculpture, a rare copy of a Greek Hellenistic original. It shows a nude boy extracting a thorn from his foot, possibly Ascanius, son of Aeneas, or a young grape harvester. It gained Renaissance acclaim and influenced many artists. Pope Sixtus IV’s 1471 donation of bronzes, including this piece, marked the founding of the world’s oldest public collection.