World War I era Turkish Ottoman national flag.
This Ottoman flag was formerly part of the collection of the M.H. de Young Museum. Founded in 1895 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the de Young Museum was San Francisco's first museum. It was a great success from its opening and has been an integral part of the cultural fabric of the city and a cherished destination for millions of residents and visitors to the region for over 100 years.

Michael Henry de Young, 1849 -1925, was an American journalist and businessman who owned and published the San Francisco Chronicle. He used his wealth to further his eclectic tastes and accumulated a collection of immense variety, and such diverse objects such as sculptures, paintings, flags, polished tree slabs, paintings, objet d'art, jewellery, a door reputedly from Newgate Prison, birds' eggs, handcuffs and thumbscrews, and a collection of knives and forks.

As San Francisco's premier repository the de Young Museum came to house a number of flags, but the exact history of this Ottoman flag is unknown. It was donated to the de Young Museum by Thomas H. Kullujian, a prominent San Francisco merchant, who had a store on Post St., on October 27, 1914. Mr. Kullujian also donated an early Persian Flag at the same time, ZFC0202.

This flag apparently was acquired during World War I when the Ottoman Empire, now the Republic of Turkey, was one of the "Central Powers" along with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria. It may have been brought to America as war booty. The donor of the flag to the De Young Museum was Thomas H. Kullujian, whose name suggests that he was an Armenian. The Christian Armenians fought desperately against the Muslim Turks during World War I and in 1918 were able to create an independent homeland.

Red was the national color of the Turkic people who settled in the Anatolian Peninsula, now part of Turkey, centuries ago. The crescent and star were symbols that had been used by the city of Constantinople which the Turks renamed Istanbul. The Turks themselves had also used the crescent as a symbol. The modern national flag of Turkey combines these colors and symbols and dates from 1844, although variations of it had been in use for centuries.

ZFC Significant Flag

Provenance:
• Acquired by Thomas H. Kullujian, San Francisco, CA.
• Gifted to de Young Museum, 1914.
• Sold via Butterfield & Butterfield Auctions, SF, CA, to the Zaricor Flag Collection, 1997


Sources:


History of the de Young Museum, de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 17 November 2011, from: http://deyoung.famsf.org/about/history-de-young-museum

Ottoman flag, Wikipedia, 17 November 2011, from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_flag

Ottoman Empire (Turkey, 1299-1923), Flags of the World, 17 November 2011, from: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/tr-ottom.html

Image Credits:
Zaricor Flag Collection