McIan Prints
The Clans of the Scottish Highlands
R.R McIan 1803 - 1856
The Victorian era was the great age of romanticism and nowhere was this more evident that at Queen Victoria's Scottish home of Balmoral Castle on Deeside. She and her consort Prince Albert were ardent fans of all things 'Highland' and enthusiastically embraced the world of tartan. Born in 1803, Robert Ronald McIan became an actor and he too became enthralled with tartans. McIan was also something of a painter and with the encouragement and collaboration of his friend James Logan, utilised those skills to produce The Clans of the Scottish Highlands.
McIan's stage background is evident in many of his illustrations which are theatrical in the extreme. They're also lacking the great detail of the miniaturist McLeay but they do form the most complete record of Highland dress of the day and are extremely popular for framing and displaying in offices, pubs and dens. Painting tartans is notoriously difficult and like many of his artistic colleagues, McIan didn't always get them right!
Click on each illustration to see the full painting.
This fine collection of McIan prints - 74 in all - are exact replicas of the originals and are individually printed on art quality matt paper in two sizes — A4 (297mm x 210mm: 11.7inches x 8.3inches) and A3 (420mm x 297mm: 8.3inches x 16.5inches). Because of differing formats in McIan's day the prints do not take up the complete width of today's paper but do maximise the length.
