A beautifully wooden carved staff companion piece to ZFC0414.
This is a unique and original Italian Eagle Contrada (district) Palio flag. It is the pole for ZFC0414.

This Contrada Palio flag was formerly part of the collection of the M.H. de Young Museum. Built in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the de Young Museum was founded in 1895, making San Francisco's first museum. It was a popular venue from its founding, central to Bay Area arts and culture and visited by millions of visitors for over 100 years.

This grooved and painted wood staff came with the flag, but it is not known if it is original to the flag. Perhaps the pole is display hardware furnished by the de Young Museum. However, it is unique and different from all of the other Palio poles and staffs acquired from the de Young.

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, such as sculptures, paintings, arms and armor, porcelain, native American and South Pacific artifacts, polished tree slabs, paintings, objet d'art, jewelry, a door allegedly from Newgate Prison, birds' eggs, handcuffs and thumbscrews, and a collection of knives and forks. In addition, as San Francisco's premier repository the de Young Museum came to house a number of flags. De Young displayed many of these in a museum Flag Room, to which this staff possibly originates.

A large flag was affixed to this staff by ties. Please see companion pieces ZFC0226 and ZFC0413.

Provenance: Acquired at auction for Butterfields and Butterfields auction of the de Young museum collection deaccession in 1997.

ZFC Significant Flag
Item is Framed

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