Tartan name

[figheadair]

Kind of funny that they slapped the "hunting" tag on it, isn't it? Because the tartan, as I understand, was lifted from that painting at a much later date, and that fellow certainly doesn't look like he's dressed for hunting!

I can't recall when the Hunting suffix first appeared; DC Stewart used it in his Setts but I'm not sure about his father's Old & Rare. One to check. I suspect that the reason it was added was to differentiate it from the red Lord of the Isles, also worn by Alexander MacDonald, this one from a slightly earlier portrait.

As I understand it's one of the tartans which, in modern times, has been lifted from an 18th century painting, from a period before tartans were named, and before the notion of 'clan tartans' existed

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The vast majority of early tartans that now bear clan names are similarly taken from portraits of fragments associated with one particular individual or family but in truth we have no idea how widely they were worn or whether they were a local weaver's sett or woven to order. A mixture of both I suspect.

(BTW it looks like his kilt is boxpleated all around, doesn't it?)

Yes it is and the squareness of them suggests that they might have been partially sewn unlike that of Lord George Murray for example.