anticSwiss 01/10/2021 11:23:46 http://www.anticswiss.com

Grand Tour Boy With Thorn 19th century bronze sculpture

SOLD ANTIQUE DEALER Period: 19° secolo - 1800 Antica Roma Gallery Cobisa Style: Altri stili +34 665372671 0034665372671 Height:35cm Width:17cm Depth:27cm Material:Bronzo - Marmo Price:0€

DETAILED DESCRIPTION:

We present this Grand Tour sculpture from the famous Hellenistic model Spinario, in bronze, from the 19th century.

The double rectangular base is in black marble, the sculpture depicting a seated young man while, with his legs crossed, leans over to remove a thorn from the sole of his left foot. There are several versions scattered in museums around the world.

The perhaps older one, in bronze (73 cm high), is located in the in , while a marble is part of the Uffizi collection in and was copied by Brunelleschi in the famous competition panel for the north door of the Baptistery of the 1401. Another marble copy is found in the , a bronze one in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

History: The statue in Rome has been documented since the 12th century. It was noticed in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century by an English traveler, Magister Gregorius, who wrote in his De mirabilibus urbis Romae that it was ridiculous to think it was Priapus. In fact, it must be considered that until then the boy's leaning scrotum had been mistakenly seen as an extremely large penis, typical of Priapus's iconography.

It was donated by Sixtus IV to the city in 1471, taking it from the Lateran palace. During the whole Renaissance it was among the most admired and copied ancient statues and at that time probably the legend of the shepherd boy of Vitorchiano Gnaeus Martius was born who ran from Vitorchiano to Rome to warn of the arrival of the Etruscan invaders, he hastened ignoring the thorn that she had entered the foot, stopping to extract it only after the mission had been accomplished.

The work immediately enjoyed international fame in cultured and intellectual Europe,

1 / 4 anticSwiss 01/10/2021 11:23:46 http://www.anticswiss.com also thanks to the exceptional state of conservation and the very rare bronzes transmitted from antiquity. By reputation it was equal to the Apollo of the Belvedere, the Venus de 'Medici, the Laocoonte, the Discobolus or the Horses of San Marco. It is therefore not surprising how Napoleonic France had obtained it by means of the Treaty of Tolentino and how it was among the first works subject to Napoleonic stripping. In 1798 Napoleon confiscated the statue as the object of the Napoleonic stripping and sent it to his museum in Paris (today's Louvre), where he remained until 1815 when it was returned thanks to Canova's work.

Today it is thought that the Capitoline spinarium is a pastiche assembled in the 1st century BC, with the Hellenistic body (3rd century BC) and the oldest head (5th century BC), also because the hair instead of falling down is adhering to the head , as if the figure were standing. The other Spinari would derive from this work.

For more photos and information: do not hesitate to contact me.

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Nicolò Di Giuseppe Whats App +34 665372671 Antica Roma Gallery [email protected] Instagram: anticaromatoledo https://www.anticswiss.com/en/fine-art-antiques/grand-tour-boy-with-thorn-19th-century-bronze-sculpture-20294

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