The ancient sculpture of a boy removing a thorn from his foot is called Spinario.
The name Spinario comes from Latin spinus, meaning “thorn,” and is commonly used for the celebrated Boy with Thorn statue. The best-known version is a Greco-Roman bronze now in Rome’s Palazzo dei Conservatori. It shows a seated boy bending forward to pull a thorn from the sole of his foot, turning a small everyday injury into an unusually focused study of concentration and anatomy.
The sculpture has a remarkable survival history. It was among the few ancient Roman bronzes that remained visible through the Middle Ages. In the 1160s, Benjamin of Tudela saw it outside the Lateran Palace in Rome and identified the boy with the biblical Absalom. Renaissance artists later studied the work; Filippo Brunelleschi adapted its pose for an attendant in his 1401 competition panel, The Sacrifice of Isaac.
Spinario is not the name of a single universally unique version. Related bronze and marble versions exist, including a Roman marble in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery. The title describes the subject, while Boy with Thorn is the clearest English name.