Perhaps he felt affronted at the question, and at not being recognised in his quality of nobleman; he may also have meant to depreciate the industry of the Florentines, who for the most part are occupied with trade, as though to say:  ’You ask me what my art is?  Is it possible you think a man like me could be a trader?’ Michelangelo, perceiving his drift, growled out:  ’You are doing bad business for your lord!  Take yourself away!’ Having thus dismissed the ducal messenger, he made a present of the picture, after a short while, to one of his serving-men, who, having two sisters to marry, begged for assistance.  It was sent to France, and there bought by King Francis, where it still exists.”

As a matter of fact, we know now that Antonio Mini, for a long time Michelangelo’s man of all work, became part owner of this Leda, and took it with him to France.  A certain Francesco Tedaldi acquired pecuniary interest in the picture, of which one Benedetto Bene made a copy at Lyons in 1532.  The original and the copy were carried by Mini to Paris in 1533, and deposited in the house of Giuliano Buonaccorsi, whence they were transferred in some obscure way to the custody of Luigi Alamanni, and finally passed into the possession of the King.  Meanwhile, Antonio Mini died, and Tedaldi wrote a record of his losses and a confused account of money matters and broker business, which he sent to Michelangelo in 1540.  The Leda remained at Fontainebleau till the reign of Louis XIII., when M. Desnoyers, Minister of State, ordered the picture to be destroyed because of its indecency.  Pierre Mariette says that this order was not carried into effect; for the canvas, in a sadly mutilated state, reappeared some seven or eight years before his date of writing, and was seen by him.  In spite of injuries, he could trace the hand of a great master; “and I confess that nothing I had seen from the brush of Michelangelo showed better painting.”  He adds that it was restored by a second-rate artist and sent to England.  What became of Mini’s copy is uncertain.  We possess a painting in the Dresden Gallery, a Cartoon in the collection of the Royal Academy of England, and a large oil picture, much injured, in the vaults of the National Gallery.  In addition to these works, there is a small marble statue in the Museo Nazionale at Florence.  All of them represent Michelangelo’s design.  If mere indecency could justify Desnoyers in his attempt to destroy a masterpiece, this picture deserved its fate.  It represented the act of coition between a swan and a woman; and though we cannot hold Michelangelo responsible for the repulsive expression on the face of Leda, which relegates the marble of the Bargello to a place among pornographic works of art, there is no reason to suppose that the general scheme of his conception was abandoned in the copies made of it.