This boxer's idealized body was modeled on the Hellenistic Greek sculpture Boxer at Rest (ca. 330 BC), excavated in Rome in 1885. Douglas Tilden's sculptures of athletes championed the physical and moral virtues of fitness and competition. As intellectual labor became increasingly common, boxing became popular with men such as Theodore Roosevelt, who viewed the sport as a means to cultivate manliness and who continued to box privately even after becoming president of the United States.