U.S. 35-Star Flag.
This 35-star woolen flag with a rectilinear starfield of five horizontal rows of seven stars each is typical of flags made after 1863. It boasts machine sewn stripes, hand sewn inset stars and has been finished with a canvas header and brass grommets.
The flag was formerly in the acclaimed flag collection of noted antique dealer Mr. Boleslaw Mastai and his wife Marie-Louise d'Otrange Mastai, formerly of New York City and later of Amagansett, Long Island.
The flag is stenciled on the upper obverse hoist "John T. Hanna" and was originally thought to be the name of a vessel. However, a search of available records reveals that no such named ships, civilian or naval, during the American Civil War existed. Recent scholarship has revealed that there were three soldiers with that name serving in the Union Army and it is quite possible that additional research may reveal which, if any, had an association with this flag.
Boleslaw Mastai sequentially numbered the flags in his collection but the Mastai number for this flag is unrecorded.
Publication History
Mastai, Boleslaw and Marie-Louise D'Otrange, The Stars and The Stripes: The American Flag as Art and as History from the Birth of the republic to the Present, Knopf, New York, 1973.
Provenance: Acquired by the Zaricor Flag Collection in 2002 from the Mastai Flag Collection through auction at Sotheby's of New York City.
ZFC Important Flag
Sources:
Mastai, Boleslaw and Marie-Louise D'Otrange, The Stars and The Stripes: The American Flag as Art and as History from the Birth of the republic to the Present, Knopf, New York, 1973.
35 Star Flag - (1863-1865) (U.S.), Flags of the World, 27 April 2012, from: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-1863.html
John T. Hanna, The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, National Park service, 27 April 2012, from: http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm
Image Credits:
Zaricor Flag Collection.
