From Ramsay's Flora MacDonald to Raeburn's MacNab: The Use of Tartan as a Symbol of Identity

摘要

Portraits and satirical engravings offer insights into the differing ways in which tartan was used, displayed and adopted as an expression of identity during the period 1746-1822. From being the cloth of Jacobitism, tartan became the cloth of the loyal Highlander, fighting for the Hanoverian crown; from being the cloth of an Enlightenment 'natural man', it became the garb of the vilified Lord Bute and rapacious Scots in general; from being an exotic 'foreign' costume at a London masquerade, it became the costume of nascent Scottish nationalism, a role which it retains to this day.