This bronze statuette of a crouching nude male figure with drapery falling over his back and shoulder, with his arms reaching out to an object laying on the surface ahead, is a reduced version of the original classical marble known as the Arrotino or Knife-grinder, rediscovered in the Renaissance during excavations in Rome when it was acquired by Cardinal Ferdinando de Medici in 1578. Sent to Florence in 1677 it was prominently displayed in the Tribuna at the Uffizi. Small-scale versions in bronze such as this example appeared in major European collections from the end of the seventeenth century.