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Does mysterious painting prove blue denim was around 200 years before Levi’s?
Woman Begging With Two Children, by an unknown artist, shows what appears to be a denim skirt in 17th-century Italy
Blue denim, that all-American symbol of informality and a life lived on the open range, is already also contentiously attributed to southern France, while modern jeans mythology still has it that Levi Strauss, a German immigrant, first came up with the idea of making workwear out of this sturdy cotton in San Francisco 150 years ago. Photograph: Fondazione CariploNow a gallery run by international fine art dealer Maurizio Canesso is appealing for further research to help identify an anonymous painter who specialised in street scenes that often depict poor people in northern Italy wearing what looks like blue denim. An exhibition on the history of the fabric, “Jeans, From the Street to the Ritz”, running until in March in Madrid’s Museo del Traje, gave the final word on the subject to French designer Yves Saint Laurent.
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