Black Watch museum loans items for tartan exhibition
Perth’s Black Watch Castle and Museum has given two historic items from its collection to the V&A Dundee on loan for a new Tartan exhibition.
The exhibition, which aims to take a radical new look at the iconic design, will feature a mug from the early 19th Century and a framed coloured print‘les Grapilleurs’- believed to be over 200 years old - both from the Fair City attraction.
The first loaned item is a tall ceramic mug, titled‘an old performer playing on a new instrument, or one of the 42nd touching the Invincible’.
Originally drawn by artist S W Fores around 1803, it is decorated with a caricature that depicts a soldier of the 42nd Black Watch Regiment carrying Napoleon under his arm like a set of bagpipes.
The mug commemorates the 1801 British victory over the French at Alexandria and is a key example of tartan as propaganda.
The second loaned item is the framed coloured print,‘les Grapilleurs’, which will be displayed in the‘tartan and Identity’section of the exhibition.
It shows a large Scottish soldier dressed in a feather bonnet and kilt, eating grapes with one hand and holding the edges of his kilt up with the other hand to cradle more grapes.
In the background, three other soldiers can be seen picking and eating grapes from the vineyard.
The presence of kilted regiments in Paris following the Napoleonic Wars sparked a French fascination for tartan and kilts.
This satirical print pokes fun at the novelty of Highland dress and addresses the eroticised curiosity of what a Scotsman hides beneath his kilt, with the humorous innuendo of the soldier grappling with a bunch of grapes.
Fiona Connah, curator at The Black Watch Castle and Museum, said:“at The Black Watch Castle and Museum, we share the story of The Black Watch Regiment, the oldest Highland Regiment in Scotland, whose tartan-kilted uniform is recognised across the globe.
“Therefore, we were delighted to be asked by V&A Dundee to loan these interesting items from our collection and to contribute to such a significant exhibition.
“Both the mug and the print are popular with our visitors, who are simultaneously amused and fascinated by these depictions of the Highland soldier.”