Madonna blue

No doubt it had a beauty all its own, but beneath its fantastic, isolated blooms and leaves of Madonna blue, the gnarled roots sheltered a hundred varieties of poisonous reptiles and insects.

1917 August, Cynthia Stockley, “Blue Aloes: The Strange Story of a Karoo Farm”, in Cosmopolitan, volume LXIII, number 3, page 30, column 1

A little Dutch bonnet for the tiny girl is made of Madonna blue broadcloth.

1922, The Illustrated Milliner, page 57

She was wearing a gown of Madonna blue and looked very fragile and ethereal.

1932, Agatha Christie, Peril at End House, page 85

But now, in a few months’ time, the lease would be terminated, the owners were unwilling to renew it, and nowhere upon the Island could Reverend Mother find another vacant house large enough to house twenty female orphans; devout, happy little orphans who went to Mass on Sundays walking two by two, clothed in dresses of Madonna blue with white tuckers at the necks, blue cloaks, and black bonnets tied beneath their orphaned chins with neat blue bows.

1944, Elizabeth Goudge, Green Dolphin Street, New York, N.Y.: Coward-McCann, Inc., page 280

Tanks would be filled and the sprayers would move through the frilly groves of vine, covering each leaf, wrapping each bunch of green grapes in a delicate web of Madonna blue.

1969, Gerald Durrell, Birds, Beasts and Relatives, London: Collins, page 236