This cotton was printed at the manufactory established in 1760 by Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf (1738-1815) at Jouy-en-Josas, a village propitiously situated between Paris and Versailles, the main residences of the French court. Louis XV recognised its importance in 1783 when he named it a Royal Manufactory.

For the first ten years, Oberkampf block-printed his textiles. He only adopted the copper-plate printing process, used for this fabric, in 1770. Many steps were involved in producing the finished textile. First the copper plates were engraved with the desired design using a burin, in the manner of plates for fine art prints. The plate would then be coated with a mordant, a solution that would react with the dye during the dyeing process, binding it to the cloth. The cloth would then be printed with the plates by hand before finally being immersed in vats of dye for the design to take.

Jouy's reputation lasted well beyond its closure in 1843, monochrome printed textiles of this type often being called toiles de Jouy (literally 'cloth from Jouy') to the present day, despite the fact that many of the textiles produced in this way came from other centres of production such as Nantes.

One of the most famous events of the French Revolution is depicted on this valance : the Fall of the Bastille (14 July 1789), a royal fortress which commanded the eastern side of Paris and which was considered to symbolize the monarch's despotism. Here citizens are seen dancing on its ruins, and Louis XVI is shown swearing an oath to maintain the new French constitution on the altar of the Nation in the presence of Lafayette on horseback, and national guards bearing flags (1791).