Superbly carved white openwork flower. The flower was previously in the possession of Rudolph Voll (1911-2009) who acquired it in the 1970’s in Hong Kong. The life of Rudolph (Rudolf) Voll reads like an adventure-book. He was born in Berlin, Germany in 1911 as son of a master-tailor and fled Germany in 1936 when he was betrayed by his best friend who reported him to the nazis for insulting the ‘führer’ when he mocked the nazi salute. Voll was faced by certain death in a concentration camp and had no alternative but to leave his country of birth. In 1937 he arrived in Shanghai from where he tried to reach Manila. A typhoon however blew his ship off course and he landed in Tokyo, Japan where he eventually became the only western trader at the exclusive Japanese pearl-fair. Pearls made him wealthy and during his business-trips to Hong Kong he used his spare time to roam around on Hollywood Road and Cat Street where many antiques shops stocked and sold jades. Like many westerners before him, Rudolph Voll became hooked by jade and started collecting small jade trinkets, like ornaments, buckles, figures and flowers. We were very fortunate to acquire a number of flowers and other jades from his heirs in San Rafael, California. Rudolph Voll passed away in 2009 in Thailand, 97 years old. A similar type of flower (nr 344) is depicted in professor Cheng Te-k’un’s book ‘Jade Flowers and Floral Patterns in Chinese Decorative Art’.