File:MacDuff tartan (1815, Highland Society), tileable.png

English: The tartan of Clan MacDuff as recorded by the Highland Societ of London c. 1815–1820. This is not the sett that is most often used as MacDuff today (for that, see File:MacDuff tartan (1819, Wilsons), tileable.png). It may actually post-date that version, recorded by Wilsons c. 1819 if not earlier, as Wilsons had multiple versions, and this appears to be a variant, which replaced the thick black check (common to the entire Stewart/Stuart and MacDuff family of tartans) with a dark green band, and using two hues of green in the same tartan is an unusual though not unique feature.

The overall pattern is basically the same (aside from the change to dark green) as that of royal Stewart, but without the latter's yellow and white over-checks. It is possible that a version of what is now MacDuff was ancestral to the Stewart sett (though the earliest directly attested recording of a MacDuff variant was c. 1815–1820 in the Highland Society of London records, while the Stewart variant known as Prince Charles Edwart Stuart has been identified in surviving cloth samples from the mid-18th century, and is one of the oldest setts in continuous production [1]. The MacDuffs have been familialy connected to the Stewarts of Albany since the late 14th century.

This image is exactly full-sett, and can tile horizontally and vertically. Scottish Register of Tartans' rather useless notes on this pattern: "Highland Society of London founded in 1815 to collect autheniticated tartans. By 1816, 74 specimens had been found, This collection is found in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow." [That means 74 tartans total, not 74 samples of MacDuff.]

This is a usual, mirroring tartan. Thread count (in "/" notation): /R96 B16 DG34 G48 R18 K6 R9/ (or in boldfacing notation: R96 B16 DG34 G48 R18 K6 R9) As with all the other MacDuff tartans aside from the Vestiarium Scoticum version, it typically uses a lighther (Balmoral) blue than the typical dark "tartan blue".