The 1849 jury reports for an innovative gold-medal-winning shawl, which virtually describe this textile, suggest that it was woven specially for the Paris Exposition of Agriculture and Industrial Products of that year by the firm of Deneirouse and Boisglavy. Mid-nineteenth-century shawls were mechanically made in Europe but still produced by hand in India. This particular manufacturer had developed the technology to weave in the Indian way on a mechanized loom. The firm exhibited a very similar design in London at the 1851 Great Exhibition.