Tartan ID from paintings

[Profane James]

I recently came across some paintings that, in my opinion, have striking representations of tartan. If I may ask the more expert among us to assisting in the identification of these two examples - that is, if they have been authentically reproduced.

Padraig Grannd (Patrick Grant)
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/...vin-smith.html



Colonel William Gordon, assuming Red Gordon?

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/...7361816-196521

[davidlpope]

Patrick Grant is wearing a plaid of Prince Charles Edward Stuart tartan. It's readily available as a stock fabric.

[figheadair]

Patrick Grant is wearing a plaid of Prince Charles Edward Stuart tartan. It's readily available as a stock fabric.

And the trews look like Murray of Atholl.

[figheadair]

Sir William Gordon looks to be wearing Red Gordon but the sett is busy and the painting is not sufficiently clear to be certain but it's a reasonable speculation.

There are a number of other portraits in which the tartan is clearly identifiable; The MacDonald Boys being one such; however, these 18th century portraits show tartans that we now know by a clan name rather than 19th century ones that usually show the sitter wearing a previously known sett.

[figheadair]

Here's an example of how not to do it.

The portrait of Sir George Macpherson-Grant by Sir George Hayter c1838-40.


Here is the tartan as extracted by Dr. Phil Smith which he called, completely without authority, Macpherson-Grant.


Quite how Smith arrived at this setting is beyond me. The portrait is more thematic than detailed but there is sufficient detail to allow an extraction of the sett which is obviously the standard Grant/Drummond tartan.