The Amsterdam city coat of arms is painted in the centre and four corners of this bedspread: an oval shield with three crosses. This is the only known chintz cover with a city’s coat of arms. The earliest mention of an armorial chintz dates from 1614, when the Dutchman Wemmer van Berchem sent a batch of chintzes from the Coromandel Coast to Pieter Both, Governor-General of the VOC in Batavia. The fabric was decorated with Both’s coat of arms.