Castellated Hose

[OC Richard]

Images like this put me in mind of paintings I have seen of the 15th and 16th century European court dress. (King Henry VIII and earlier).

I think that's exactly it, the Allen Brothers were taking images of non-Highland court dress they had seen, and incongruously applied those styles to Highland Dress.

[OC Richard]

...folding down the top to create only the appearance of a castellated hose behind a contrasting foreground...

I can't remember seeing another image of folded-over castellated hose like that.

There appears to be a seam around the top, so that the hose might be permanently in that orientation.

About the contrast, it was common in Victorian times for tartan or diced hose to have "marl" turnover cuffs, so I'm not surprised to see hose having tops that contrast with the body of the hose. My castellated hose are like that.

[OC Richard]

Here's another of their fantasy images in which the (plain) castellated hose are clear. I can't haven't worked out what the source for this one was but it has elements of Waitt's Champion and Piper to the Laird of Grant.

Attachment 40262

Ha!

I just saw that they used a B&W version of that for the cover of Seumas MacNeill's book on piobaireachd.

I wonder if the publishers have a clue about the image's origin. I'm sure they imagine it's a genuine depiction of a piper from some unknown past.

BTW whichever Allen brother drew that obviously didn't quite understand what Highland bagpipes (or any bagpipes) look like. The pipes in the Allen drawing are a strange blend between ornate silver-mounted Victorian pipes and the stereotypical trumpet-like bells seen on old illustrations of bagpipes all over Europe. In fact Highland pipes never seem to have had such bells, nor any other sort of bagpipe now that I think about it. (Modern makers who have turned reproduction bagpipes with the big trumpet bells seen in Mediaeval drawings discovered that they waste a huge amount of timber for negligible acoustic effect.)

[figheadair]

BTW whichever Allen brother drew that obviously didn't quite understand what Highland bagpipes (or any bagpipes) look like. The pipes in the Allen drawing are a strange blend between ornate silver-mounted Victorian pipes and the stereotypical trumpet-like bells seen on old illustrations of bagpipes all over Europe. In fact Highland pipes never seem to have had such bells, nor any other sort of bagpipe now that I think about it. (Modern makers who have turned reproduction bagpipes with the big trumpet bells seen in Mediaeval drawings discovered that they waste a huge amount of timber for negligible acoustic effect.)

Definitely a contender I'd have thought.

[OC Richard]

Other than them both being pipers, I don't see any similarities.

Different poses, different pipes, different costume, one piper righthanded one lefthanded.

The Laird Grant pipes are beautifully painted, the bag is a perfect representation of a sheepskin bag from the colour to the seam running down the bottom edge and the tie-in cord binding the chanter stock in place.



The turning style survives today in Spain.



The Laird Grant pipes' drone tops are quite elegant shapes, such are seen on many European pipes and also sometimes on 18th century Highland, Lowland, and uilleann pipes.

Here's an old Highland set (no provenance which is typical) showing the bass drone top quite similar to the Laird Grant pipes and to Spanish pipes. The tenors have a different shape, seen on some Low Countries pipes.



as opposed to cartoonish pipers like these where the artist has simply put trumpets coming out of the bag. Note that the "drones" aren't in sections and 1) are too long to be turned on the lathes the woodwind makers used back then and 2) are impossible to tune.

Needless to say no such bagpipes have survived anywhere.