This service, with the gilt script initials WH, is believed to have been ordered by Warren Hastings (1732-1818), the first and probably most influential of the British governor generals of India. In 1788 Hastings bought Daylesford, Gloucestershire, the Hastings ancestral home, and he devoted his last decades to furnishing it in Anglo-Indian splendor. Dispersed by his stepson in 1853, the house and estate passed through various owners before being acquired by the 2nd Viscount Rothermere in 1946. He refurbished it based on documentation of the Warren Hastings era with the advice of John Fowler of Colefax & Fowler. Christie's New York sold property from Daylesford April 16, 1994 on behalf of the estate of Mary, Viscountess Rothermere.