U.S. 20 stars and 13 stripes confirming Mississippi as the 20th state.
This period example was made to indicate the admission of Mississippi as the 20th state on December 10, 1817; and would remain accurate until the admission of Illinois on December 3, 1818, a period of only 358 days; correspondingly 20 star flags are quite rare.

Flags bearing 20 stars and 13 stripes were made the official flag of United States when President James Monroe signed the Flag Act of 1818 into law. On the 4th of April 1818, the United States Congress altered for the third time the design of the national flag of the United States. From this day forward, its field consisted of only thirteen alternating red and white stripes. The number of stars in the blue canton, however, would be twenty, with new states being recognized in the canton by the addition of a star on the 4th of July immediately after the states admission. Although a specific grand luminary star design had been proposed in the course of the legislation, no star pattern was delineated in the bills final form. On May 18th, 1818, The U.S. Navy commissioners proposed that the Navy ensigns bear the twenty stars then forming the Union in four staggered horizontal rows of five stars each. However, President James Monroe disliked that pattern, and on September 18th, the Navy ordered that all of the flags should have their stars arranged in four horizontal rows of five stars each, all five in vertical alignments with the top row. This flag conforms to that circular and its size is comparable to ensigns used on small boats by the US Navy, leading to the speculation that this in in all likely hood such a flag.

This 20 star flags history is unknown; but it was formerly part of the acclaimed collection of noted New York City antique dealer Mr. Boleslaw Mastai and his wife Marie-Louise d'Otrange Mastai. Their collection was the result of fifty (50) years of collection, research and study by the late husband-wife team. Mastai, started his collection in the early 20th century and amassed to greatest private flag collection in the United States which he personally detailed in his landmark book The Stars and The Stripes; The American Flag from Birth of the Republic to the Present, published by Alfred Knopf, New York 1973, and hailed as a revelation of the American Flag as art and as social history.

Exhibition History:
Baltimore Star Spangled Banner Flag House 3/2004
20-Star United States Flag

Publication History:
Madaus, Howard M., Dr, Whitney Smith, The American Flag: Two Centuries of Concord and Conflict. Santa Cruz: VZ Publications, 2006, p. 37.

Provenance:
• Acquired by Mr. & Mrs. Boleslaw & Marie-Louise D'Otrange Mastai, New York City, and Amagansett, NY, The Mastai Collection, as Mastai # 2, until 2002.
• Sold via Sotheby's Auction in New York City to the Zaricor Flag Collection, 2002.


ZFC Significant Flag

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