Vintage Austin Productions Sculpture of 'The Spinario' -a Boy Removing a Thorn

Vintage Austin Productions sculpture of 'The Spinario' - a Boy removing a Thorn from his foot -

Dimensions are ; 8 7/8" high , 4 7/8" wide at its widest , 6 1/8" deep , with an oval base roughly 6 3/8" X 5" . Studio of manufacture is Austin Productions ( 1969 ). Material is hard plaster or casting stone . This very familiar sculpture has been copied innumerable times ever since the original was sculpted approximately 2 millennia ago. Created by an unknown sculptor sometime in 3rd century BCE it now resides in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome. Famed sculptors have replicated it through the intervening centuries and many of those replicas now sit in museums all over the world. The sculpture is a simple vision of a boy ( erroneously first thought to be Priapus ) removing a thorn from his foot . He sits on a stump , his left leg crossed over and resting on his right knee . As he works to remove the thorn his concentrated gaze and the arched tension in his back display the seriousness of his task . This is one of the first sculptural images from Ancient Greece that was eagerly copied by the Romans. It was identified in the 12th century ostensibly as Absalom , 3rd son of King David . The work is recognized as an allegory for the pain which life can bring to each of us and our efforts to relieve that pain. This reproduction made by Austin Productions is very faithful to the original .