Tartan Police!

[prattw]

I would cuation against reading too much into this quote. Not to imply that you are guilty of this yourself, but I have seen too many people use this as "evidence" that the Grant tartan dates to 1704, or at least the Grants had some "clan tartan" in 1704.

What does this quote really tell us?

Number one, it tells us that the members of Clan Grant were not wearing a uniform tartan to begin with, or else the cheif would not have to specify that they were to wear these specific colors when they were called to the field.
[snip]

Actually Matt, what I meant to imply was some of the points that you made. First, if Ludovic Grant had to describe what they were to wear, then they weren't already wearing it. Second, it bore no resemblence to any modern Grant sett. And third, the setts in two existing portraits that show men wearing it are not identical, so no more than a general "style" was intended. (After all, these were two of the Grant's personal retainers.)

Actually, looking at the figure of Grant Piper in the Tartan Authority, there's quite a bit more difference than I remembered, though. In fact, looking at the actual portraits at http://www.clangrant-us.org/art.htm there's a good bit more difference in the reconstructed tartans than the portraits. In fact, neither of the recontructions look like very good reflections of the portraits (as viewed in MS PowerPoint at 200%). The Grant Piper reconstruction looks better, though. Comparing the portraits, the selvedge in "Champion" is clearly green while in "Piper" it is red (it being born in mind that neither painting shows very good color preservation, quite aside from differential fading of the kilts). The setts, as shown in the portraits, are quite similar, but the dimensions of the sett seem a bit smaller in "Piper", and the red stripes are narrower in "Piper". And the sequence of stringing the warp must have differed to produce different selvedges.

In short, it was a new idea in 1704, nobody was being terribly careful to make an exact match, and there is NO connection whatever to later Grant tartans (save at the level of "red and green, broad springed".)

Will Pratt