The Hellenistic statue of a young man pulling a thorn from his foot, popularly known as the Spinario, of which Cézanne saw a bronze replica in the Louvre, has been a favorite model for artists since the Renaissance. One of the figures in Seurat's painting The Models (The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania), which is roughly contemporary with this drawing, is based on the same statue. Here Cézanne views it from the left side and slightly below, emphasizing its open, irregular silhouette; in another copy (Chappuis, Adrien. The Drawings of Paul Cézanne. 2 vols. Greenwich, Conn., 1973, no. 561) he sees it from the right and a little above, so that the compact, rounded forms produce a closed silhouette. The view from the left, and especially the foreshortening of the bent left leg, clearly posed a problem that Cézanne's lack of conventional training in anatomy and perspective left him unable to resolve fully. Theodore Reff, from Paul Cézanne: Two Sketchbooks (1989), p. 158.