"Study after the "Spinario" (recto)"

This Roman drawing by Gossart combines different studies on one sheet. The recto shows at least two sculptures seen in different parts of Rome, while on its verso a crossed-out sketch of a helmet can be seen. On the recto the central sculpture of a boy is framed by two sandaled legs and left and right and by helmets above and below. The sculpture of the boy is the Spinario, or Boy with Thorn, one of the most celebrated and beautifully preserved Hellenistic bronzes (now in the Musei Capitolini in Rome).

Gossart study of the Spinario, drew after the original, is among the earliest renderings of the sculpture, preceded by only a few anonymous Italian drawings.

The leg on the right side of the sheet was identified as the left leg of a colossal statue of a genius, now in Naples. Although it is not known where the sculpture was located when Gossart visited Rome, it is recorded as standing in the garden of the Villa Madama in the 1530s, when it was drawn by Maerten van Heemskerck. Van Heemskerck’s drawing indicates how the size and position of the statue, in the first niche in the wall at left, would have made it easy to study the details of the handsome decoration of the sandals.