This fabric is a brocaded silk and was intended for ladies’ gowns. The technique of brocading allowed different colours or types of thread to be introduced into the pattern of a fabric in specific, sometimes very small areas. This was of particular importance in silks woven with metal thread, like this one. The gold or silver was too precious to waste on the back of the fabric, where it would not be seen. This silk is brocaded with different types of silver and silver-gilt thread. The thread is now quite worn, but it would have created a rich glittering effect when intact and untarnished.

Dress silks from France began to dominate fashionable taste across Europe from the 1660s until well into the 18th century. The French Minister of Finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), regularised the French textile industry in order to reduce the variety and improve the quality in each regional weaving centre. This was so that they could compete against foreign imports, instead of competing against each other. This fabric is likely to have been woven in Lyon, which was the centre for the most complex and luxurious of the patterned silks.