Overall: 38cm (11in) x 30.5cm (12in)
Oil on board. A heraldic artist’s hand painted polychromed coach panel depicting the arms of Clan MacFarlane. Arms: Argent, a satire engrailed gules between four roses gules. Crest: A demi-savage holding a broad sword in the dexter hand and pointing to a crown with the other. Supporters: Two Highlanders in MacFarlane tartan and armed with broadswords. Clan Motto: This I'll Defend. War cry: ‘Loch Sloy’ (after the loch under Ben Vorlich, Dunbartonshire). Contained in period maple frame with gilt slip.
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‘In the time of the last Chief of the Clan MacFarlane, who was Laird of Arrochar, there was a man named Robert MacPharick, who lived at Inverioch, and who pretended to be possessed of the gift of 'second sight; he was at one time, with some others, on Stronafine hill, and slept. He awakened suddenly, and said: ' MacFarlane's time at Arrochar will not be long, and the person who comes in his place will be a stranger to us, and will make parlor and kitchen a pig-sty; and, shortly before that happens, a black goose will come and remain among MacFarlane's geese. It will not be known where the goose came from, nor whither it went.’ He also said, There will be four bridges where there is now but one, on the estate. MacFarlane will shortly after leave Arrochar, and his clan will lose all trace of him. One day, soon after this, a black goose alighted among MacFarlane's geese as they were feeding, and after eating flew into a tree. No one cared to interfere with it; it remained, feeding with the geese, and staying nights in the tree, for about three months, and then disappeared.” Shortly after this war broke out between America and Great Britain. MacFarlane was heavily taxed and was also deeply in debt. His family had been reared in luxury. Gambling with cards was then considered respectable. He entertained with a princely hospitality that the revenues of the estate could not support. He sold an estate that he owned in Jamaica for £8000, but could not avert the threatened ruin, and in 1784, as before-stated, the Barony of Arrochar, which for six hundred years had been in the possession of the MacFarlanes, passed into the hands of strangers.’
‘History of The Clan McFarlane’, 1893.