‘Boxer at Rest’ - a rare Hellenistic bronze sculpture from 330 BC to 50 BC.
The bronze statue of the Pugile delle Terme or Pugile del Quirinale, is a 128 cm high Greek sculpture, attributed to Lisippo or his circle. It is considered to be one of the finest examples of Hellenistic bronze sculptures, due to its realism, and the vivid emotions that it displays.
He is an athlete in a moment of rest that powerfully transmits all the effort of the fight; the realism of the scars on the face, the flattened nasal septum and the ears deformed by the blows suffered in who knows how many fights (this man was almost certainly deaf from the trauma suffered) tell the story of the hard life of the Pankration wrestlers. The statue, found at the foot of the Quirinale in 1885, was probably part of the thermal complex of Constantine, was intentionally and carefully taken in and placed on a large capital. Some parts are shiny, a sign of the contact of the hands that for centuries have shown devotion for this Hercules bent by fatigue and suffering, but superhuman, and therefore revered as a God.