Historic Painting Thread

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Regarding the MacIan portraits, some in that series depict contemporary dress, and so can be relied upon to reflect the actual dress as the artist saw it. Others, as you have correctly stated, are meant to depict historic dress from various periods, and are usually not very accurate at all. We know a lot more about historic attire today than James Logan or Robert MacIan did in the 1840s.

[sirdaniel1975]

[BoldHighlander]

Note the pleats going all the way around the front:

[BoldHighlander]

[BoldHighlander]

[BoldHighlander]

[McMurdo]

By Richard Cooper

The print (which does not explicitly name its subject, referring to him dismissively as ‘the Son of the Pretender’) advertises the massive reward of £30,000 offered by the British government in early August 1745 for the capture of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, who had landed in Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides in late July. Its satirical thrust derives largely from the prince’s balletic pose and elaborate Highland costume or ‘Disguise’. This is the first image to depict the prince clad in tartan.

[McMurdo]

James Drummond
Montrose
Dated 1859

James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, raised an army on behalf of Charles II and won many victories in the Highlands. He was eventually captured by treachery, and is here shown dragged by the public executioner on a cart up the Royal Mile, past the balcony of Moray House, where his greatest enemies, the Marquis of Argyll and his family, were watching. Drummond had a profound knowledge of the buildings of old Edinburgh and was a passionate collector of many of the kinds of object - Highland weapons and costumes - which feature in this picture. He based his story upon a poem by William Edmondstoune Aytoun, which presents Montrose as a betrayed saint or martyr to the Royalist cause.

[BoldHighlander]

This print is part of the Boyd Album, a collection of prints and documents collected together by the Boyd Family and now in the collection of Dean castle.

[Morris at Heathfield]

There's a story that, as Montrose was being led to Edinburgh in rags, a MacNaughton took off his plaid and handed it to him. For this reason he is depicted in the MacNaughton tartan in Drummond's painting. Also, there is a Red Graham (of Montrose) tartan that is almost identical to the MacNaughton tartan.