This sign comes from the rue du Gros-Horloge in Rouen. The image of the three merchants bearing their bundle of white fabric on the back immediately serves to explain the pun on the sign: these are cloth merchants (étoile = star, toile = fabric). The star and number of merchants are an obvious reference to the Magi. But here they are depicted as hawkers, sporting the civil garb of noble citizens of the late eighteenth century.