Glamis Castle Prince Charles Edward Stuart tartan

[OC Richard]

Peter's fascinating article on the large piece of 18th century tartan in the sett now called Prince Charles Edward Stuart on display at Glamis Castle

https://www.scottishtartans.co.uk/Po...hEd_tartan.pdf

sent me down the rabbit-hole of trying to replicate this tartan in the Gaelic Web's online tartan generator.

Here's the original in the best online photos I could find, top how it's displayed at Glamis Castle (with TWO signs, and a sword, piled on top) and bottom its appearance at the V&A Dundee exhibit.



Here, stood on end, are those two photos with my CGI image in between. It took a bit of adjusting but I think I've got the sett pretty close.

The original fabric's sett-size is around 8.5 inches.

[figheadair]

A good approximation Richard.

[OC Richard]

Thanks! It took several iterations and comparing each one to the photos to arrive at what I think is as close as I'm going to get.

Because if I change anything it throws something else off.

Next is playing around with "custom colours" or whatever they call it to try to get that specific green. The original appears to have a bit more olive than Gaelic Web's stock "flax green".

I will say that I think I prefer some of the 1819 KPB proportions especially when the black stripes which border the azure are a tad wider.

Those narrower black stripes make the sett feel a bit underpowered. Maybe I'll play with that.

[OC Richard]

Prince Charles Edward Stuart trews, West Highland Museum.

I thought I would come up with an approximation of this tartan as well.

It's impossible to know how close I've come because of the distortion in the photos. When my thread count is a 100% match compared to one portion of the trews, it's noticeably off compared to another portion of the trews. So I went with something that's at least around a 90% match everywhere.

Though superficially it resembles the Glamis fabric almost every proportion is different.

[OC Richard]

I tried to match colours. I only found two photos of the West Highland Museum trews, the colours are quite different, so I split the difference.

Here's my estimate of the Glamis Castle piece compared to my estimate of the WHM trews.

As we see the red/azure/black portion of the tartan is reduced with the WHM trews, and overall it's a bolder pattern, the Glamis fabric being more attenuated.

[OC Richard]

Now a third old example of PCES tartan has come on my radar, a bias-cut tartan suit in the NMS collection said to date to 1822.

Here's the three tartans compared.

Note that the green area stays pretty much the same, but the relative widths of the black/azure/red section vary from example to example.

Here's with my mockups which were carefully matched to photos of the originals. Clearly the NMS tartan suit has the narrowest azure and the widest red.



My preference is for the West Highland Museum Trews sett, with the widest azure and narrowest red.

[figheadair]

Richard,

Is there a reason that you have chosen to include the c.1822 (I think it's closer to 1830) against the other two when it is but one example of Wilsons' cloth in this pattern of which there are many surviving examples. Here for example, is another coat from the same era.



And here are four other examples of Wilsons' PCES dating from c.1790-1830.



Note the variations/proportional differences between the red and light blue, the larger black and green squares, and the relationship of the yellow and white.

[OC Richard]

For me it's an aesthetic exercise, a study in how changes in proportion impact the overall look.

Then there's the colour thing which I haven't got into much. Certainly the tartan looks dramatically different when the green is dark.

I also tried one with the blue being dark, it looked really nice, though the blue is supposed to be Azure.

Anyhow I've come up with a "threadcount" CGI thing that matches the NMS tartan suit.

Here in order of the width of the Azure and the narrowness of the Red are three relics.

My preference is for the look at left, the West Highland Museum trews. I think when the red stripe between the Azure stripes becomes around the same size as the other red band my "eye" isn't liking the overall sett as much.

Of course with Royal Stewart they doubled-down on the width of that red stripe, making it dominate the sett.

[Jock Scot]

Well alright to those that are interested, the colours, shades of colours and settings within the sett are of significance. However, I have to be honest here, I doubt if most in the past and present day would even notice or care on a day to day basis. Particularly from a colour point of view due to the vagueness of the practical chemistry and day to day “weathering”involved in the past.

So, I have to ask our historical and artistic experts, from a historical, theoretical and practical point of view, did any serious discussion, historically speaking, take place about these differences of sett size and colour within tartans in general and these tartans in particular? Or, is this a present day fad, amongst the more academic of us?

[OC Richard]

...did any serious discussion, historically speaking, take place about these differences of sett size and colour within tartans in general and these tartans in particular?

I don't know about discussions which might have been had, but the Wilsons certainly did a large amount of tinkering with their designs.

Witness all the various proportions seen in the Prince Charles Edward Stuart tartan above. These weren't accidents but deliberate design choices.

And look at all the various colours employed, also deliberate design choices.

We can't ask Van Gogh about why he chose this or that colour, or this or that brush-stroke, or this or that composition. We have to study his paintings if we want to come to some kind of understanding as to why he made the choices he did.

Ditto the Wilsons. If we could travel back to the 2nd half of the 18th century we could ask them why they chose the proportions, colours, and sett-sizes they did. But like with Van Gogh's paintings, Wilsons tartans can tell us all these things if we look carefully enough.

Now why am I spending time (not much, in truth) reconstructing some of Wilsons patterns?

One of the painting classes I had in University had us do one painting copying Van Gogh's style, another Monet's, another Munch's, etc. (Not copying one of their paintings, but rather doing an original painting in their style.)

The instructor felt we would learn more about an artist's style by actually trying to paint in that style than by any amount of talking. He was right.

We experience art by looking at it and creating it, not by talking about it.

Thus what I should be doing is weaving these old patterns, rather than being lazy and quick and doing CGI. Indeed I can learn nothing about Wilsons weaving unless I weave.

That's what Peter has done, the craft of the weaver, and he has gained tremendous insights from it.

I'm merely approaching old tartans as graphic designs. In doing so I'm doing them a disservice.