EARLY SET OF SCOTTISH BAGPIPES
18TH CENTURY
Auction: Day 2: Thursday 21 August - Lots 297 - end
Description
comprising the remnants of a leather bag, covered in checked tartan wool, with a chanter stock, two tenor drones, a base drone and a blow pipe, together with a set of fruitwood and leather bellows, the drones in turned fruitwood with horn and bone mounts, the mounts to the bag in turned dak hardwood, probably laburnum
Dimensions
the base drone 65cm long
Footnote
These pipes have features of both the ‘Highland' pipes, with two (developing to three) free drones with their own stocks, chanter and blow pipe with a leather bag, and also the ‘Lowland’ (also known as the Pastoral or Union) pipes, with three smaller fused drones in the same stock and filled with bellows via the blowpipe.
The turned tops and stems of the two tenor drones are similar to the set of bagpipes dating from the early 18th century in the Collection of the Dukes of Atholl, Blair Castle, exhibited at the Jacobite Exhibition at Blair Castle in the summer of 2020. The chanter is inscribed in Gaelic and English ‘These pipes belonged to John McGregor, piper to the Duke of Atholl, played in the Battles of Prince Charles Stuart’s Army in 1745-6'. The turning style of the drones and the arrangement of the stocks around the bag of these pipes are also similar to a set of mid-18th century Scottish pipes donated by Mr Norman Welz to the College of Piping in 2012, transferred to The National Piping Centre’s Museum in 2020.