The designer of this elaborate pattern for a textile is unknown, but its inscription shows that it was destined for printing with wood blocks by John Munns. Munns’ calico-printing manufactory was at Crayford, a town to the south east of London. A number of textile manufacturers were established there, taking advantage of the river Cray, a tributary of the river Thames, for the abundant water their work needed. Munns was in business from the 1760s until his bankruptcy in 1781, combining the trades of calico-printing and gunpowder-making.

By the mid-eighteenth century, wood-block printing on cotton and linen textiles had developed to a high standard. The dyeing techniques used to produce the strong fast colours on imported Indian chintzes which had dazzled European customers in the seventeenth century had been mastered. A commentator on the state of British textile arts in 1756 wrote : "chintz…can imitate the richest silk brocades, with a great variety of beautiful colours".