Career
In their early twenties, and Édouard developed a personal relationship and were romantically involved for approximately ten years. She also may have been Auguste"s mistress. In 1852, Leenhoff gave birth, out of wedlock, to a son, Leon Koella Leenhoff. and Édouard were finally married in October 1863, a year after the death of Édouard"s father.
Eleven-year-old Leon Leenhoff, whose father may have been either of the Manets, posed often for Édouard Manet.
Most famously, he is the subject of the Boy Carrying a Sword of 1861 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). He also appears as the boy carrying a tray in the background of The Balcony.
Manet is reclining on a couch and appears to be seated at a piano. The mystery that surrounds the portrait by Degas is the fact that the painting has been slashed from top to bottom and right through the likeness of The supposition is that Manet, for an unknown reason, cut the painting.
When Degas saw what had been done to his painting he demanded its return, and he took it back.
Degas intended to re-paint the likeness of at the piano and he reiterated his intention to Ambroise Vollard in conversation with him around the turn of the century. Degas never got around to fixing the painting and it remains in its slashed state in the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art in Japan.