Erika Pohl-Ströher (18 January 1919 – 18 December 2016) was a German business executive, heiress, and collector of minerals and German folk art. She was resident in Switzerland for much of her life.

Life

Pohl-Stroher was born on 18 January 1919 in

Wurzen Wurzen () is a town in the district Leipzig (district), Leipzig Land (voting) and Muldental (number plates), in Saxony, Germany. It is situated next to the river Mulde, here crossed by two bridges, 25 km east of Leipzig, by rail N.E. of Leipzig L ...

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

and grew up in Rothenkirchen in

Vogtland Vogtland (; ) is a region spanning the German states of Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia and north-western Bohemia in the Czech Republic. It overlaps with and is largely contained within Euroregio Egrensis. The name alludes to the former leadershi ...

. She studied chemistry and biology at the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...

and received a doctorate in biology. She died on 18 December 2016 at the age of 97.

Business career

Pohl-Stroher's grandparents, Franz and Marie Stroeher, founded the hair care and cosmetics company Wella AG in the 19th century. When

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/con ...

bought the company for more than $4 billion in 2003, Pohl-Stroher received around $1.1 billion for her 23% stake. Her net worth was estimated by

Forbes magazine ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The c ...

to be US$1.3 billion making her the 101st wealthiest person in Germany at the time of her death.

Art and mineral collection

From 1978 until her death, Pohl-Ströher amassed a large collection of European portrait miniatures from the 16th through the 19th centuries, including works by, among many others,

Nicholas Hilliard Nicholas Hilliard ( – before 7 January 1619) was an English goldsmith and limner best known for his portrait miniatures of members of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I of England. He mostly painted small oval miniatures, but also some l ...

Rosalba Carriera Rosalba Carriera (12 January 1673 – 15 April 1757) was an Italians, Italian Rococo painter. In her younger years, she specialized in portrait miniatures. Carriera would later become known for her pastel portraits, helping popularize the medium ...

Jean-Étienne Liotard Jean-Étienne Liotard () or Giovanni Stefano Liotard (22 December 1702 – 12 June 1789) was a Genevan painter, pastellist, printmaker, art theorist and art dealer. Born in the Republic of Geneva as the son of exiled French Huguenots, he spent mo ...

, Heinrich Friedrich Füger, Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin, and

Moritz Michael Daffinger Moritz Michael Daffinger (25 January 1790 – 21 August 1849) was an Austrian miniature painter and sculptor. Life Daffinger was born in Vienna, the son of Johann Daffinger (1748–1796), a painter at the local Vienna Porcelain Manuf ...

. In 2018, the collection was auctioned by

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

for more than 1.7 million

GBP Sterling (symbol: £; currency code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of sterling, and the word '' pound'' is also used to refer to the British currency general ...

. Pohl-Ströher was also known for her collection of

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...

s, which she acquired over sixty years. She permanently loaned her collection to TU Bergakademie Freiberg in 2004, and part of the collection was put on public display at the Terra Mineralia museum in Freiberg, Saxony, in 2008. The collection is known particularly for its

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...

s. Pohl-Ströher received a number of

geosciences Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...

award, including the Stein im Brett by the Association of German Geologists and an honorary doctorate from TU Bergakademie Freiberg's Faculty for Geosciences, Geotechnical Engineering and Mining. The mineral was named in her honour in 2010.

References

External links

* ''Includes portrait'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Pohl-Stroher, Erika 1919 births 2016 deaths People from Wurzen Businesspeople from Saxony German mineralogists German natural history collectors University of Jena alumni German expatriates in Switzerland Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony