*** Scottish boys clothes: Brodie Family (1840s)








Wealthy Scottish Family: The William Brodie Family (1840s)

Scottish family
Figure 1.--This James Currie portrait shows the William Brodie family about 1844. He was the 22 Laird of Brodie. Here the two older boys (George and Hugh) wear matching plaid dresses. Notice the low neclines and ruffled trim. We do not see their lottle sister wearing plid dresses. Nor do we see the family wearing plaid garments earlier in the century. They would have been about 4-5 years old. When a little older we see them wearing kilts for an outing on the moor in another Currie painting.

William Brodie (1799?-1873) was the 22nd Laird of Brodie. An early painting by John Opie in the early-19th century shows William Brodie as a boy with his brothers, sisters, and a huge dog. William wears a red skeleton suit and all the other children wear plain long Empire-style dresses without a tartan in sight. Some of the yonger childrn must be boys. A few decades later, artist James Currie painted a very destinguished looking William as an adult with his wife Elizabeth Baillie and their children during the 1840s. Currie was connected with the Brodie family in Scotland and painted several portraits of the family in the mid-19th century.There were six children: George Gordon (1839- ), Hugh Fife Ashley (1840- ), Caithness Druim (1842- ), and William Douglas (1845- ), and two other children. There do not appear to have been any surviving sisters. Currie has left us several important images as to how children from a rich Scottish Highland family dressed in the mid-19th century. The Scottish influence is much stronger thn was the case when William was growing up which of course we an credit at least in part to Queen Victoria. The Curie paintings mages show the boys wearing dresses and kilts. Apparently they wore tartan dresses before being dresed in kilts. Notice how similarly the Brodies and McKay boys are dressed.







HBC






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Created: 9:12 AM 12/12/2017
Last updated: 9:12 AM 12/12/2017