$11,000
Estimate: $8,000 - $12,000
A Grand Old Flag: The Stars and Stripes Collection of Dr. Peter J. Keim
Auction: November 24, 2019 1:00:00 PM EDT
Hand-sewn, double appliqued cotton stars arranged in a 'scatter' pattern on a two-piece wool bunting canton, hand-sewn stripes of varying widths, canvas hoist with two whip-stitched grommets, hoist bearing stamp, "Mastai Collection," and inscribed, "No. 27."
47 in. x 70 in.Provenance: The Boleslaw and Marie-Louise d'Otrange Mastai Collection of American Flags and Related Patriotic and Political Memorabilia, Sotheby's, October 10, 2002, lot 61.
Literature: Kevin Keim & Peter Keim, A Grand Old Flag: A History of the United States Through its Flags (2007), 102.
Nancy Druckman and Jeffrey Kenneth Kohn, American Flags, Designs for a Young Nation (2003), 28.
Boleslaw and Marie-Louise d'Otrange Mastai, The Stars and The Stripes: The American Flag as Art and As History from the Birth of the Republic to the Present (1973), 76 and slip cover. "To describe the haphazard way in which the stars are set on the canton of this naval flag of thirty-one stars to form a dense, scintillating constellation evocative of a shower of shooting stars, one must coin a new term embodying precisely that conception; the 'scatter' pattern."
Note: The Mastais' commentary on this Flag: "To describe the haphazard way in which the stars are set on the canton of this naval flag of thirty-one stars to form a dense, scintillating constellation evocative of a shower of shooting stars, one must coin a new term embodying precisely that conception: the 'scatter' pattern."
California was admitted to the Union, September 9, 1850, under President Zachary Taylor. The 31-Star Flag was used for seven years until the admittance of Minnesota as a state, May 11, 1858.