After the acquisition Nieuwekerke kept it in his private collect­ion until January 1867, when it entered the collection of Renaissance sculpture in the Louvre. But rumours had already begun emanating from Florence that the Benivieni-bust was a modern work, made by an other­wise unknown Florentine sculptor Giovanni Bastia­ni­ni, and soon a quarrel broke out between the French and Italian art worlds. The Frenchmen refused to accept the possibility that a contemporary Italian artist could be able produce a Renaissance master-piece of such an outstanding quality.