For the first 20 years of the 19th century, the finest and most expensive printed furnishings were polychrome woodblock-printed cottons, the technique used here. This fabric could have been used for curtains or upholstery. In this period it was particularly fashionable for the different furnishings used in a room, including window curtains and upholstery fabric, to match or complement each other. Bannister Hall, near Preston, Lancashire, where this fabric was printed, was the leading works for woodblock furniture chintzes and set the fashion for other factories. Printing was carried out for London linen-drapers, such as Richard Ovey of Covent Garden, who from 1790 to 1831 was the leading London merchant for 'furniture prints'. He commissioned designs from skilled artists and sent them to Lancashire or to Carlisle in Cumbria to be printed.