Jacobite era tartans still in use today

[Tarheel]

Knowing my family and their ability to meld into circumstances that will support the survival of the whole, I agree there may not have been a singular or defining tartan to bind many versatile groups under one banner or Laird. Without the evidence of cloth or portraits, I agree with the speculation on the longevity of an official tartan of the Clan. Yet the Colquhoun survive and are proud of our heritage. Thanks for your opinion and observations figheadair.

[CMcG]

Gen. David Stewart of Garth was the driver to gather the Society's tartan collection. He was taken by the idea of clan tartans even though he and the majority of chiefs had no idea of what they wore in the 18th century. As a result, many chiefs went to Wilsons to ask them what they should be wearing. Wilsons' comments on a number of tartans supports the recent adoption of tartans by particular clans. The MacQuarrie sample is one of a very small number that were gathered in the Highlands rather than supplied by a commercial weaving firm..

Yes, I've heard about the rush for chiefs to get a clan tartan, particularly before King George IV's big visit to Scotland in 1822. Sort of like a gold rush, but with tartan—everybody racing to stake their claim. It is ironic that a majority of chiefs didn't know what their clan tartan was and had to ask the weavers, but amazing how powerful the idea was and how strongly people have held on to it.

It is very cool to find out that the HSL MacQuarrie sample came from a rural, Highland source. I wear the more common MacQuarrie, but now I've got a serious hankering for the Jacobite era version! Matt Newsome has a MacQuarrie kilt in the Cockburn sett, which appears to be quite similar to the HSL sample, but not quite the same.

My MacQuarrie modern:



Matt's Cockburn collection MacQuarrie:

[OC Richard]

It would be nice to have a gallery of all the 18th century portraits which have been mined for tartans that are currently woven.

I'll make a little start...

The green/green/white MacDonald (I saw about 30 kilts in this tartan yesterday... it's worn by a local youth pipe band)



There are, what, four different red tartans in this painting? How many have been reconstructed from the painting and woven?



The Piper to the Laird of Grant. Has this tartan been woven? That light red looks like binding.



The Champion.

[KD Burke]

Interesting paintings. I'm particularly struck by "The Champion"'s weapon. It appears to be a strange cross between a broadsword and a cavalry saber. I'm sure that a frugal and adaptive people like the highlanders would be able to find a use for a 'misplaced' saber, but it's not the first think that comes to mind.

I wonder if this was a bit of dramatic license on the part of the artist? If so, might not the tartan also be fancified?

[Jock Scot]

I wonder if the Red tartan (MacLeod?), shown in the Ramsay portrait of Norman MacLeod(wicked man) painted in the late 1740's---I think----is still woven these days?

[figheadair]

Good to see a number of comments on this thread.

Richard, my own view is that the tartan in the first of your pictures is/was actually blue and green as opposed to two shades of green.
The MacDonald Boys wear four tartans between them, excluding the diced hose. Only one, the Lord of the Isles Red (the younger boy's coat) is woven commercially. I have reconstructed the tartan in the other coat and once wove a sample. IMO there is insufficient of the other two shown to allow an accurate reconstruction.

The tartan in the Waitt portraits, probably the same in both, has been reconstructed but is not woven commercially. I think it unlikely that the light band is some sort of binding and I believe it more likely to be the artist's attempt to represent a selvedge mark. There is also the intriguing possibility that this is the 'red and grein broad spranged' tartan that the chief of the Grant's told his servants to wear for a hunting match in 1703. If that were the case then it would be the first example we know of where a there was some local uniformity in tartan design. Most likely the chief will have ordered a bolt to be used by his retainers for best.

Ken, I’m not competent to comment on the sword but from a tartan perspective, the fact that it is the same in both portraits makes it less likely to be fanciful IMO.

Jock, the red tartan is indeed still woven but it's not a MacLeod sett, it's Murray of Tullibardine - discussed here.

[OC Richard]

I wonder if this was a bit of dramatic license on the part of the artist? If so, might not the tartan also be fancified?

This sort of thing comes up from time to time. They say "what's been seen cannot be un-seen" and it's true, it's difficult if not impossible for modern people to look at paintings done in the past without bringing to the old paintings many anachronisms. We've experienced Impressionism and Cubism and so forth and we're used to paintings diverging from reality and we throw about the term "artistic license".

However different time-periods in art had different sets of expectations; in 1715 Impressionism was 150 years in the future.

At the time those paintings were done the expectation was of near-fanatical precision regarding surface detail. Painters who couldn't accurately reproduce the tiniest detail of fabric, lace, buttons, etc wouldn't be able to get any commissions! Sometimes their knowledge of anatomy was lacking, and the landscape backgrounds were often fanciful, but we can be sure that fabrics etc are accurate.

A testimony to this (were any needed) is the way the pipes are painted in The Piper To The Laird Grant. I highly doubt if the painter was intimately familiar with bagpipes, yet he has painted the bag the exact colour of a sheepskin bag, and even captured the bag's seam. (I doubt the painter even knew that sheepskin bags had a seam, yet there it is.) Also note the cord which is binding the chanter stock into the bag. Every rosette on the piper's coat is carefully recorded. I think we can assume that the costumes are quite accurate.

Peter I'll have to disagree about the binding. It's absolutely clear that the same edging goes along the bottom of the (great) kilt and up the front edge, in The Piper painting. The painter certainly would not have taken the selvedge colour and put it up the front edge of the kilt where it didn't exist. It simply wasn't in the bones painter of that style and quality to invent something like that; it would have gone against his training and the art style of the period.

The Champion's (great) kilt appears to be the same fabric but is bound with edging of a different colour. This, too, is absolutely clear. Were it the selvedge, it would match in both paintings (assuming the cloth is from the same web).

All of which is not to say that a painter of the time who was unfamiliar with the "rules" of tartan design wouldn't struggle at times to accurately record every detail of a particular tartan correctly; the point is that the artist would do his very best to paint what he saw. It couldn't enter his mind to purposely diverge from what was in front of him; such notions didn't exist.

I've spent some time examining the pipes in The Piper painting and it seems obvious to me that the painter was somewhat defeated or confused about the mechanical construction of the wooden parts of the pipes. Interesting, because the painter lavished so much care on the bag! But the style of the time was obsessive about costume detail, so the painter was on home ground concerning the bag, not so much about the wooden parts of the pipes. It could have been a matter of time: perhaps the costume and bag were painted from life, but the pipes were painted after the piper left with them, and were based on the artist's preparatory sketches. The same could be true of The Champion's sword and gun.

In any case I've prepared full-scale sketches of the outward appearance of The Piper's pipes which have been laid over typical modern Highland pipe specs; my intention for decades has been to have this set reproduced. By the way the set appears to be of local hardwood and mounted in grey cowhorn or pewter (pewter mounts are common on old French and Bulgarian bagpipes).

In case one wonders at the odd style of The Piper's pipes, here are early Highland sets that aren't too different

[Jock Scot]

Thank you Peter.

[KD Burke]

I'd certainly agree that the clothing is reproduced with more accuracy than the accoutrements, likely so in in both paintings. The Champion's musket appears to be an Indian jezail, and the Piper's tenor drones appear to project from a single, y-shaped stock!

The pipes themselves aren't terribly interesting to me, as they appear to be straight and plain-turned, but the mounts seem to be very interestingly shaped, and, if I had sufficient disposable income, I'd be tempted to have them reproduced.

[Dughlas mor]

Interesting paintings. I'm particularly struck by "The Champion"'s weapon. It appears to be a strange cross between a broadsword and a cavalry saber. I'm sure that a frugal and adaptive people like the highlanders would be able to find a use for a 'misplaced' saber, but it's not the first think that comes to mind.

I wonder if this was a bit of dramatic license on the part of the artist? If so, might not the tartan also be fancified?

Basket hilts paired with sabre type blades were not common, but they did exist. There is a superb example pictured in the book "Culloden, The Swords and the Sorrows," that dates to the 1690s. They were known as Turks or Turcaels. There are a few around today, and there are enough historical references that I would not doubt the authenticity of the sword in the portrait.