Fig leaf

Origin of: Fig leaf

Fig leaf

For hundreds of years it has sometimes been customary to cover the genitalia in paintings and statues with fig leaves. One could argue that the fig leaf was the first clothing item known to humankind because it was only after Adam and Eve had eaten the Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden that they became aware of their nakedness and “sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons”. The quotation is from Genesis 3:7.