Samuel Hood was apprenticed to Robert Cooper in 1685. Robert Cooper was without doubt one of the leading goldsmiths of late 17th and early 18th centuries and became Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths Company in 1717. One of his best known pieces is a partly-fluted two-handled wine cistern of 1680, the property of the National Trust, Ickworth, Suffolk. With such an influential master it is not surprising that Samuel Hood also became a most competant goldsmith. It is interesting however to compare the present ewer with those made by the immigrant goldsmiths. In 1697 Pierre Harache produced the first in a series of helmet-shaped ewers with demi-figure handles which were to become the most fashionable for the next 30 years. Perhaps resenting the Hugenot style, Hood has with the present example continued to use the traditional 'English' form, although perhaps acknowledging the French influence by the use of plain pierced strapwork to the lower part of the body

Charles Lowndes of Chesham, Buckinghamshire was the third son of William Lowndes, M.P. Secretary to the Treasury, by his fourth wife, Rebecca daughter of John Shales. This ewer and basin would appear to have been commissioned by his father as a christening gift after the birth of his son in circa 1699. Charles married in 1730 at St. Giles Cripplegate his cousin, Anne daughter and co-heir of Charles Shales, a London banker. The Shales family were closely connected with the Goldsmiths Company. He died on 31st March 1783 at Chesham aged 84. "He sat down in good health to supper, but expired at the table. He was younger son of Ways and Means Lowndes," Gentleman's Magazine 1783