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Old and rare Scottish tartans

Chapter 42: STEWART OF ATHOLL.
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About This Book

The work offers a systematic survey of historic Scottish tartans, opening with a chronological introduction that compiles, verifies, and corrects references in earlier writings. It documents on-site examinations of portraits, miniatures, relics, and private collections, and reproduces selected setts by weaving fine silk samples to capture original colours and interlacing. Detailed descriptive notices accompany forty-five specimens, while notes review prior publications and manuscript sources. Prefatory material explains selection criteria, reproduction methods, and acknowledgements to the families and institutions that granted access.

STEWART OF ATHOLL.

Five tartans described in the MS. whence the Vestiarium Scoticum was derived are omitted from that work. The illuminated transcript of the document by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder and the drawings of designs by Charles Edward Stuart, brother of the editor of the Vestiarium, were kindly placed at the disposal of the Editor by Miss Dick Lauder. In the Introduction will be found a lengthened reference to this work, while some notes regarding it also appear in the list of works hitherto published on the subject of tartans. It is believed that the reproduction of these patterns will prove of interest; and, accordingly, they are illustrated in Plates XXII. and XXXIV. to XXXVII. of the present volume. The Vestiarium is enough of a bibliographical rarity to be known to comparatively few, while the original MS. is meanwhile quite unavailable. The scheme here represented bears considerable resemblance to certain early setts of Royal Stewart, but no record yet discovered indicates the period of its general use in Atholl. There is reason to believe, however, that it constituted the basis of the red tartan of Clan Donnachie or the Robertsons. The well-nigh universal adoption of the Atholl district pattern (commonly styled the Atholl-Murray) by the various septs in this part of Perthshire precluded the extensive wear of any other. Hence this design has remained almost unknown to the present generation.

XXXV. STEWART OF ATHOLL