Earliest sporrans (circa 1710)

[OC Richard]

The Glen Affric tartan becoming famous as the "earliest known tartan" brings to mind the question "what is the equivalent sporran"?

First we should be aware that it was stated from the get-go that Glen Affric was chosen over other possible candidates such as the 3rd century "Falkirk tartan" (a basic two-colour check) and the "Hami fragment" a twill-weave 3-colour fairly complex tartan dated to 1,000 BC, of the Indo-European-speaking Kusinne people of the Tarim Basin.

Thus the sporran equivalent won't be a non-sporran, that is, some pouch from a culture other than Highland Scots, but rather a true sporran worn as part of Highland Dress.

Second, the fact that we're looking for the "earliest" sporran requires any candidate be firmly dated. This rules out any of the presumably old sporrans in museums or private collections, none of which, as far as I know, have been scientifically dated.

Which leads us to iconography, in this case oil portraits of subjects wealthy enough to purchase them.

Oftentimes we don't have exact dates of the paintings, but since we know the dates of the subjects and we can see their approximate age we can get pretty close.

How reliable are the paintings? We should keep in mind a couple things

1) The subject was the one paying for the painting. A full-length portrait from a known artist in the 18th century, if I'm doing my maths correctly, would be around $150,000 in today's money. I'm assuming that if I paid a large sum for my sporran, and a far larger sum for a painting, I would require the artist to paint it accurately.

2) Something that just dawned on me today, having worked my whole career in the art field: artists draw what they see because that's the path of least resistance. It's the easiest way, and the fastest way. It might seem strange to a non-artist, but when you're drawing from life you're not thinking, you're just seeing and drawing. There are no decisions to be made; all the decisions are there in the subject. It's simply hand-eye coordination.

An artist, if pressed for time, might well simplify what they see. But they'll never create something new, because that entails stopping drawing and pondering a course of action. Time is money, and there's no money in sitting around thinking up something to do when the solution is right there in front of you waiting to be seen and drawn.

In any case here are two candidates, both from around 1710.

Why not earlier? Because there isn't anything earlier. These are our earliest clear views of sporrans. What did earlier sporrans look like? We don't know. Oh, we can guess! But as a university professor told us "Never guess. Guesses are always wrong."

Top:
Kenneth Sutherland, 3rd Lord Duffus c1712 (I've seen date estimates from as early as 1700, evidently the artist didn't date the portrait.)

Bottom:
John Campbell, 3rd Earl of Breadalbane 1708



I took the sporran closeup photo of the Kenneth Sutherland painting in Edinburgh last August.

The sporran closeup photo of the John Campbell painting is courtesy of Peter MacDonald.

The drawings are mine.

It's fascinating, there are about as many differences as similarities between the two sporrans.

Kenneth's appears to be deer. The flap has some sort of red trim, it reminds me of Soutache or Russia braid (used on Scottish military uniforms to this day).

There are red braided cords, ornate brass bells, and metallic twist cord loops where we might expect tassels.

John's is a darker brown. It looks like the same metallic twist cord is used to edge the flap, then doubled for the cords, then single to attach the metallic tassels.

Both sporrans have brass button fasteners, but neither has a visible buttonhole.

We can't see the top of either sporran. I borrowed the straight-across top and single wide belt loop from the NMS sporran which appears fairly similar and could date to around the same period.