The Activities of the Factory (Les Travaux de la Manufacture) Quilted Panel

Buzzing with activity, this remarkably detailed design provides a comprehensive, if idealized view of an 18th‑century French cotton textile printing factory. In this fabric, his first collaboration with the famed Oberkampf Manufactory, the artist Jean‑Baptiste Huet depicted the laborious, multi‑step process for creating a toile de Jouy, literally a “fabric from Jouy.” Framed by foliage, men, women, and children print, wash, dye, bleach, dry, and press lengths of cloth.

French manufacturers like Oberkampf first learned the secrets of producing colorfast printed cotton fabrics thanks to contemporary reports from Europeans travelling and trading in India. In 1737, Capitaine Antoine de Beaulieu, officer in the French East India Company, circulated his account of chintz production in Pondicherry, an invaluable document now known as the Beaulieu Manuscript.