Gretchen Andersen 05.11.29 - 17.06.24

Let all the world say
What they will
Speak of me
As you find

Apposite words on the life of Gretchen Andersen, found painted on the sort of 18th Century English creamware pottery which crowded her shelves.

London has lost the last of the Grande Dames of the 20th Century antiques trade with the death of Gretchen Andersen, proprietor of the iconic Laquer Chest in Kensington Church Street for 70 years.

Gretchen was born in Johannesburg, where as in the rest of her life, she found herself way ahead of her time and was accepted to University at the age of 15. Brought to England by her parents Cyril and Oma, her father left the family home soon after. Further pain was inflicted upon Gretchen in a shocking car crash in the French Alps which saw her flung through the windscreen, causing what would now be called life changing injuries. She was left with appalling damage to her legs which meant she always had difficulty walking and had to endure surgeries throughout her life.

But Gretchen was born of a stoic, wartime generation who just “got on with it!” No one ever heard her complain. It also defined her appreciation of simplicity and thrift, which influenced both her lifestyle and later her business. She was a recycler by choice decades before it became a fashion.

Gretchen met and married Vivian, who worked as a civil engineer at Arup. She worked as a primary school teacher but developed a love and knowledge for antique ceramics whilst working Saturday mornings for Jean Sewell, in her world famous antique pottery shop in Kensington.

The Laquer Chest was opened by Esme Andersen, Gretchen’s mother-in-law in the 1950s. In 1957 the couple took on the shop with little money to invest and even less experience.

The quiet popularity of the shop grew in the bohemian circles of London’s artists and aristocracy. Regular patrons included Freud, Hockney and Snowdon. Despite the famous and wealthy customers, Gretchen remained grounded and unimpressed by fame and
wealth. Many found her outspoken and formidable. She was feared and she was loved. She was not easy. In her eulogy, the Irish writer Polly Devlin spoke of her as “quicksilver.”

To see Gretchen on her weekly buying trips to Sussex, dressed in flowing cobalt Issey Miyake silk, purchased parsimoniously in the annual sale at Dover Street Market, was to witness an almost regal arrival. She exuded a certainty of style and presence and despite nearly a lifetime of difficulty walking, she was into her eighties before she agreed to carry a

walking stick and selected a series of battered and gnarled wooden sticks which had already put in 100 years of modest use in the Sussex countryside.

She was a great believer in collections of things, no matter how long she owned them. When antiques became old fashioned in the first 20 years of this century, in a world of ‘greige’ rooms and empty surfaces, her stock began to look dated. In a far sighted move, she opened a hiring business in the back rooms at the shop renting props for films. Crockery and distressed surfaces for cookery book images. So the Laquer Chest survived and now that the wheel of taste has turned full circle, old fashioned is again at the forefront and the shop is thriving under the stewardship of Ewan Ramsay Wilson.

If the detail of a funeral defines a life, then Gretchen’s was remarkable and shone a
soft spotlight on many aspects of her complex character. She was borne into the chapel on the shoulders of her four grandsons, Bay, Orion, Hal and Oscar in a four plank, plywood coffin painted in her favourite yellow, always used on the fascia board of the shop. She would have approved. She would not have approved of the single wreath of wild flowers from a designer florist. But jam jars and buttercups are in short supply in Kensington on a Thursday morning.

A delicate soundtrack composed by her son Toby which interwove the words and eulogy by her friends Polly Devlin and David Sedaris, her daughter Emily, grandchildren Nancy, Lotte, Bay and Orion.

Gretchen is survived by her children Ben, a property magnate, Toby, a music writer and Emily, a photographer.

In the hospital on the evening Gretchen died her daughter Emily and Lacquer Chest long-time employee Merly asked her what she would like to do the next day “ I think I’ll have the day off”, replied the woman who never took a day off.

BY SPENCER SWAFFER