Leda and the Swan

Michelangelo's Leda and the Swan is a lost painting depicting the mythological seduction of the Spartan queen by Zeus in the form of a swan. Created around 1530 for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, the original was taken to France by Michelangelo's assistant Antonio Mini and reportedly last seen at the Palace of Fontainebleau, where it may have been destroyed on moral grounds. The composition is known through several copies, the finest attributed to Rosso Fiorentino, now in the National Gallery in London. The work demonstrated Michelangelo's ability to bring his sculptural understanding of the human form to a sensual mythological subject.

Based on surviving copies, the composition featured Leda in a powerful reclining pose with the swan nestled against her body, the intertwining forms creating a complex interplay of curves characteristic of Michelangelo's figura serpentinata. The muscular female body reflects Michelangelo's preference for heroic anatomical forms, and the composition's tightly interlocked figures demonstrate his sculptural approach to painting.