Why and when did the fig-leaf enter Western art ?

This was of course only one of a variety of devices of concealment : scabbards, swords, swirling drapery, shadows ... veiling devices one and all. As far as I know the fig-leaf came into its own in the 18th century. It's certainly a feature of French Revolutionary sculpture. I'd offer two explanations - one banal, the other less obvious. The banal explanation appeals to modesty and decorum, which found final and grotesque expression in Victorian England. The other, less obvious and more psychologically speculative, is that the penis - a flabby, dangling and vulnerable object - is a pretty pathetic symbol of the power of patriarchy and of masculine potency. The phallus is another matter, of course.

Why and when did the fig-leaf enter Western art ?
I'm not sure of the "when" . . . but the "Why" is the reading given in some translations of Genesis. That Adam %26amp; Eve sewed clothes from fig leaves. One popular allegorical understanding that flows from this is that the fig-leaf is a symbol of lost innocence.