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Notes

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This portrait is one of the few known to show the change and development in Scottish Highland dress. Its subject, Alasdair Ruadh MacDonell, 13th chief of Glengarry, is wearing a belted plaid, and his gillie or servant is wearing a version of what we know today as the modern kilt. A known Jacobite supporter and officer in the French army, Alasdair Ruadh was captured by British Government forces on his return from France in November 1745. He spent the next 22 months imprisoned in the Tower of London. It has been suggested by the nineteenth-century author Andrew Lang that, upon his release, Alasdair Ruadh became the infamous Hanoverian secret agent 'Pickle the Spy'. This painting is also of interest as it bears a striking similarity to one of Lord George Murray, the prominent Jacobite general.

Museum of the Isles

Armadale

Title

Alasdair Ruadh MacDonell (c.1725–1761), 13th Chief of Glengarry

Date

mid-18th C

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 156 x W 121 cm

Accession number

PD/CU/005

Acquisition method

bequeathed by Marsaili Cuninghame, 1999

Work type

Painting

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