The sculpture was made c. 1484–1490 in Mantua in Italy, by the leading sculptor Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, known by his contemporaries as L'Antico.

The goddess Artemis was offended by Meleager's father, Oeneus, and so she sent a monstrous boar to attack the fields that supplied the city with food.

[1] The weapon is part-missing, broken at some time in the past, and the boar is completely missing - it may never have been part of the sculpture as the base has no space to accommodate it.

The marble statue was destroyed on 12 August 1762 by a fire and resulting partial roof collapse at the Uffizi.

[3] He took the sculpture to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where it was immediately recognised by the curator and art historian John Pope-Hennessy as a major Renaissance work.