Hamo Thornycroft's Teucer was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in plaster in 1881. An Italian, Orazio Cervi, posed for the study a year earlier. In 1882 the monumental bronze version was shown at the Royal Academy to outstanding acclaim. Thornycroft had planned to model a series of athletes playing English sports, primarily as studies of the nude form. He had already exhibited one such example, Putting the Stone, in 1880 and with Teucer was able to exploit a long-desired composition, that of the right-angle.

In Homer's Iliad, Teucer was the archer who missed hitting Hector no less than eight times and is here captured by Thornycroft in a tense and strained attitude as he shoots a last arrow and watches its course.