Thorn Puller (Spinario)
101-200
Physical Qualities
Marble, Without Base: 16 3/4 x 8 3/4 x 9 in. (42.5 x 22.2 x 22.9 cm.)
Base: 5 x 10 x 8 in. (12.7 x 25.4 x 20.3 cm.)
Credit Line
Antioch Subscription Fund
Object Number
1937.124
This marble statuette belongs to a series of copies of a Hellenistic genre sculpture known as the "thorn-puller" (spinario). A nude young man seated on a rock with an overturned jug at his right side attempts to extract a thorn from his left foot. The missing head was originally attached with a dowel. The thorn-puller is usually presented as a young boy, but in the Antioch example he is a full-bodied rustic. The sculpture functioned as a fountain by the use of a jug pierced to allow water to run constantly from the mouth.
Christine Kondoleon, Worcester Art Museum, "Antioch: The Lost Roman City", October 7, 2000-January 7, 2001, no. 61, pp. 100, 168, 176, ill.; circulated to Cleveland Museum of Art, March 18-June 3, 2001, and The Baltimore Museum of Art, September 6-December 30, 2001.
Richard Stillwell, ed., "Antioch-on-the Orontes, II, The Excavations, 1932-1936," Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938, no. 104, p. 170.
Dorothy K. Hill, 'Some Sculpture from Roman Domestic Gardens,' "Ancient Roman Gardens, Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture," no. 7, Washington, D.C., 1981, fig. 14, p. 92.
Kondoleon, Christine, ed. Antioch: The Lost Ancient City. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press in association with the Worcester Art Museum, 2000, p. 176, ill.
Scott Redford, Editor, "Antioch on the Orontes: Early Explorations in the City of Mosaics," Istanbul, Turkey: Universitesi Yayinlari, 2014, pp. 242-243, ill.
