The Highlanders Of Scotland

[OC Richard]

The Highlanders Of Scotland

The Complete Watercolours Commissioned by Queen Victoria from Kenneth MacLeay

Published by Gracious Permission of Her Majesty the Queen

1986 The Haggerston Press London


From the dust jacket:

"Queen Victoria's passion for the Highlanders of Scotland is well known. However, one of the most remarkable aspects of her enthusiasm has been largely forgotten. Early in her widowhood she commissioned from the Scottish miniaturist Kenneth MacLeay a number of watercolours of her family and of her retainers at Balmoral. The Queen then decided to expand the scheme and to arrange for MacLeay to paint representatives of the principal Highland clans. The men were selected by the chiefs themselves and are displayed wearing the most authentic tartans and showing in detail the historic insignia and accoutrements of their clans. ..
When the set of thirty-one watercolours was exhibited in 1869 it caused a sensation. The potraits were published in 1870 in a limited edition..."

This is a remarkable book. In it there are 56 men in Highland Dress painted by an artist with an amazing eye for detail.

It captures a Highland Dress full of vitality and variety and rewards the time spent studying the paintings many times over.

Today we can be at an event and see a roomful of men in identical Prince Charlies and identical Ghillie Brogues but in this book we can see that in the 1860's a gathering of twenty men in Highland Dress might exhibit 20 different shoe styles alone!

Many of the men are in quite plain Highland Dress:



Looking very closely one is, time and again, struck by MacLeay's amazing and unerring eye for the smallest detail, such as the frayed edge of the ribbon on this man's bonnet:



Here's a closeup of one of the many interesting pairs of shoes, so often in styles no longer made today:



Many of the men are wearing plain Day jackets. Our modern Day sporrans and Evening sporrans didn't exist at that time, and long hair sporrans were worn in all modes of dress.



Highland dress couldn't be more plain. In the above dress there is no metalwork of any kind, no cap badges, no bow on the Glengarry, no flashes, plain hose, ordinary shoes. The hair sporran with plain leather cantle was the plainest sporran of that time.

Here is somewhat more elaborate dress:



Note the deerhead motif hose and brown Mary Janes on the right figure. I have a nearly identical sporran cantle which I bought on Ebay recently.

The shoes on the left figure come in for special note, because they are of an interesting style I'd not seen before, almost halfway between Mary Janes and Ghillies, open topped but laced across the opening.

Lo and behold I came across a very similar shoe in a 1930 Highland Dress catalogue, seen on the right:



So much for MacLeay's "artistic licence"!

Here's an interesting group, four men shoved into a single composition:



So much detail and variety, from the elaborately armed men on the flanks to the men in plain tweed in the middle.

The man on the left has fish clasps on his jacket.

The man on the right is holding an antique shield and is the only man wearing an 18th century sporran of the 56 kilted men. His ghillies, like most of the ghillies which appear here, are rough tan leather. Note that there are only two rows of tongues on this pair, but also seen in the book are ghillies with one row (like laced Mary Janes), three rows, and four rows.

There are lovely touches like the pointed cuffs on the brown tweed jacket and the red cuffs on his grey hose.

Here we see a full tartan suit:



Note the grey hose with a system of red and blue lines, unique in this book.

The jacket on the left has sleeve braid not unlike military jackets of the period often had. Note that his belt buckle is of a pattern still common today.

More interesting stuff:



Kilt pins are seldom seen here but the man on the left is wearing a round one. His shoes are buckled loafers, a style rarely seen today. Note the red waistcoat peeking out.

The man on the right has an interesting sporran, unique in this book, with an animal mask but two long tassels.

Note that few of the figures are wearing flashes.

In my anal historian way I noted the number of occurances of various things being worn, as follows:

Sporrans
46 long hair sporrans (only three men are in military uniform, so the rest are being worn with the ordinary civilian dress of the time, including 16 being worn with tweed "day" jackets)
5 animal mask sporrans (badger, racoon, musquash?)
2 fur body, no animal face
1 18th century sporran
1 c1810 sporran

Shoes
25 Mary Jane style (Of these only 15 have buckles both above and below the opening as is universal today. Some have buckles only above, some only below, and one pair has no buckles but is laced all the way over the opening.)
11 ghillie style (most are tan leather, a few are brown, one grey, one black with buckles at toes)
10 ordinary Oxford shoes
5 "buckle loafers" (slip-on dress loafers with nonfunctional buckles)
3 ankle boots
1 spats
1 unique pair of shoes, a blend between Mary Janes and ghillies

Jackets:
24 "Celtic" jackets (open collar & lapels, Argyll cuffs and Inverness tashes. NOT "Regulation Doublets" as are made today.)
21 "day" tweed jackets
4 jackets with open collar & lapels, Argyll cuffs, but cutaway bottom)
3 military doublets
2 shell jackets
2 "Harris men" in distinctive buttonless jackets

Of the "day" tweed jackets, 7 are grey tweed with matching vest, three grey with tartan vest, one grey with red vest.
4 are charcoal, 2 with matching vest, one with tartan vest, one with crimson vest.
2 brown tweed
1 black with tartan vest
1 blue
1 navy blue
1 tartan, Atholl Highlanders cuffs, matching tartan vest

Hats:
25 plain Glengarries
22 plain Balmorals
3 diced Balmorals (only one has dicing as is common today. One has one-row red/navy dicing, one has tiny intricate black&white dicing)

Hose:
24 diced
13 tartan
5 taupe
5 grey
1 charcoal
1 unique deerhead motif in green & red

Flashes:
40 with no flashes
5 red flashes
3 red elaborate bows
1 red bow
1 red garters tied over the hose turnover cuffs, with bows
1 red w/black edging
1 red& greenn striped
1 possibly Royal Stuart tartan, or striped?

Waisbelts:
of figures wearing their jackets unbuttoned, with vests:
16 no visible waistbelts
8 waistbelts worn over jacket
2 waistbelt under jacket, over vest
No vests tucked into kilts!
No waisbelts peeking out from under vests!

31 waistbelts are supporting a dirk
3 waistbelts without dirk, two of them military men.

Crossbelts:
all but 2 are supporting swords.

Cap Badges:
25 Glengarries have visible badges
22 Balmorals have visible badges
1 Glen has no badge or cockade ribbon
3 Balmorals with no badges

Kilt Pins:
(where that part of the kilt is visible)
27 kilts without kilt pins
5 kilts with kilt pins
1 kilt with rosettes (green)

Weapons:
32 dirks
28 basket-hilt swords
17 sginean
5 targes
4 powder horns
3 shotguns
2 pairs of Highland pistols
1 rifle with bayonet
1 18th century Claymore

Plaids:
25 long plaids with plaid brooch
8 belted plaids with plaid brooch
7 loosely-wrapped plaids without brooch