In this artwork, how is the Description and Interpretation discussed?
The statue is a masterpiece of Hellenistic athletic professionalism, with a top-heavy over-muscled torso and scarred and bruised face, penis bound by a kynodesme, cauliflower ears, broken nose, morton's toe and a mouth suggesting broken teeth. The boxer was also depicted as bearded, which would have been a typical characteristic of ancient boxers. R.R.R. Smith believes that the statue does not show a true portrait: this is genre realism, individuality removed in favor of a generic character of "boxer". A reconstruction project executed by the Frankfurt Liebieghaus Polychromy Research Project and headed by Vinzenz Brinkmann follows the interpretation of Otto Rossbach (1898) and Phyllis L. Williams (1945) and identifies the statue as Amykos, King of the Bebryces.In 1989, both bronzes were meticulously conserved by Nikolaus Himmelmann, in preparation for their exhibition at the Akademisches Kunstmuseum in Bonn. The sculpture is soldered together from eight segments, separately cast through the lost-wax process; the joins have been filed and finished to be virtually invisible. The lips and wounds and scars about the face were originally inlaid with copper, and further copper inlays on the right shoulder, forearm, caestus and thigh represented drops and trickles of blood. The fingers and toes were worn from being rubbed by passers-by in ancient times, which has suggested that the Boxer was carefully buried to preserve its talismanic value, when the Baths were abandoned after the Goths cut the aqueducts that fed them. These baths remained mostly unused until the 6th and 7th century when pilgrims being treated nearby in the Xenodochium of Santi Nereo ed Achilleo were buried at the location of the baths.The statue was displayed in the United States for the first time from June to July 2013 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as part of the "Year of Italian Culture in the United States".
kynodesme Xenodochium Liebieghaus Goths right Hellenistic boxer cauliflower ears Amykos lost-wax process Akademisches Kunstmuseum R.R.R. Smith Vinzenz Brinkmann bronzes Bonn Metropolitan Museum of Art morton's toe