New paintings by an unknown seventeenth Italian artist may prove that denim was invented by the Italians, not the French as is generally thought, reports the Telegraph.
In an exhibition at the Galerie Cannesso in Paris three paintings by the “Jeans Master” show material which is very like modern denim: in one, a peasant woman is wearing what looks like a denim skirt; in another, a teenage girl is wearing a torn blue skirt that may have been made of denim and in the third a boy is wearing a torn indigo jacket threaded with white.
The word “denim” either derives from French “de Nîmes” [from Nîmes] or from the French name for Genoa, Gênes, which may have corrupted into “jeans”. There is written evidence that denim was exported to northern Europe from Genoa in the seventeenth century.
The pictures in the Cannesso exhibition, which were discovered in private collections in Italy and the USA, are thought to have been painted in the area around Venice in the 1650s, giving credence to the theory that denim originated in Italy.
Il Maestro della Tela jeans” [“The Jeans Master”] is at the Galerie Cannesso, Paris, until 6th November..
Opening hours: Monday – Saturday, 11.00 – 19.00.
