These plates are part of the service commissioned by Sir Paul Methuen (1672-1752), the son of John Methuen (1650-1706) famous for protecting British interests in Portugal. John Methuen was appointed Minister in Lisbon from 1691 until 1694, when he returned to London as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, but in 1702 he was sent back to Portugal to break the Portuguese-French alliance. The following year he was appointed Ambassador and was presented an extensive service of plate which weighted in total almost 7,000 oz. Upon his father’s death in 1706, Paul Methuen replaced his father as Ambassador in Portugal.

Paul Methuen was educated privately and then at a Jesuit school in Paris. He followed in his father's footsteps accompanying him to Lisbon on his first appointment in 1691. However after his father's departure in 1694, he remained in Portugal as chargé d'affaires and eventually was instrumental with his father in the establishment of a commercial treaty in 1703, that would become known as the Methuen treaty which regulated trade between England and Portugal.
In 1708 he returned to England and was immediately elected Member of Parliament for Devizes (Wltshire), a seat he held until 1710. In 1713 he returned as MP for Brackley (Northamptonshire) until 1715. That same year he was sent as Ambassador to Spain and Morocco to negotiate a commercial treaty but had to return because of ill health. He became Secretary of State resigning in 1717 to return in 1720 as ‘Comptroller of the Household’ and in 1725 was appointed Treasurer of the Household. Meanwhile he had been re-elected as MP for Brackley in 1722, a seat he held on and off until 1747.
Methuen had never married and died in 1757 when he was succeeded by his cousin Paul Methuen (1723-1795) having bought him Corsham Court in Wiltshire, which is still the family home.

Much of John Methuen ambassadorial plate and his son's was sold by their descendant Paul Methuen (1845-1932), Field Marshall at Christie's on 25 February 1920 including these plates, part of lot 47 which comprised forty-eight plates bought by Comyns and described as ‘engraved with the Methuen crest and coronet, and with a narrow gadrooned borders’. The plates were subsequently acquired by Colonel H. H. Mulliner and sold after his death at Christie's on 9 July 1924.

Further plates from Paul Methuen service by David Willaume are sold in lot 605.