Child of the tortoise

In the oldest surviving inventory of the collection of the 1st Duke of Alcalá, dated 1588, it appears "...".a boy of black jasper, with one foot on a tortoise, and on his shoulder a goose, two-thirds of the height of his head.". Today this child still serves as a fountain. The attribute on the child's shoulder is no longer the goose mentioned in the 16th century, which has now disappeared and been replaced by a bronze conch shell. For Professor Markus Trunk, although the motif of children with animals is characteristic of fountain figures from antiquity, it is more likely that this piece is a Renaissance recreation following ancient models.