Henri Gervex received his earliest training in the Ecole des Beaux Arts studio of Alexandre Cabanel where he studied for five years. While still a young artist, Gervex met with great success in the Salon and was even envied by the older artist, Edouard Manet, although the two painters always remained close friends. Gervex also became friendly with the Impressionist group, and like Norbert Goeneutte (see lot 43) posed for Renoir's Moulin de la Galette of 1867. He appears in the center of the composition dancing with a pretty girl in a red hat. Gervex also had a close friendship with Emile Zola, and his novels may have inspired the realist paintings that defined so much of Gervex's oeuvre. Gervex was obviously influenced by the sucess of his teacher Cabanel, whose mythological subjects, such as the infamous Birth of Venus were well received by the Salon jury. Many of Gervex's subjects from the 1870s were taken from mythology - painitngs such as Diane and Endymion (Salon 1875) and Satyr playing with a Bacchante (Salon 1874). Leda and the Swan most likely dates from this period of Gervex's career. His Leda is a cousin to Manet's nude women in Dejeuner sur l'Herbe. Gervex has taken a mythological subject and translated it into a scene from everyday life - a pretty young bather, seated on a riverbank has been interrupted by a giant swan flapping his wings. In this charming work, Cabanel meets Manet through Henri Gervex.