SIGMUND FREUD’S COLLECTION Highlights from the Freud Museum London SIGMUND FREUD’S COLLECTION Highlights from the Freud Museum London Lead Author: Bryony Davies Assistant Curator, Freud Museum London FREUD MUSEUM LONDON TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Carol Seigel........................................................................ 11 This book has been produced in an edition of 500 Published by the Freud Museum London. Introduction: Sigmund Freud and his collection of antiquities by Sophie Freud Museum London Leighton................................................................................................. 15 20 Maresfield Gardens, London NW3 5SX www.freud.org.uk Figurine of Isis and Horus....................................................................... 28 Figure of Athena...................................................................................... 30 First published 2019 Balsamarium with satyr and maenad....................................................... 32 Red-figured hydria.................................................................................. 36 Copyright © Freud Museum London 2019. All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any format or by any means, electronic or mechanical, Statuette of Vishnu................................................................................. 38 including photocopy, recording, or any other storage and retrieval system without permission Statuette of a kneeling figure.................................................................. 40 in writing from the publisher. Inquiries concerning reproduction should be sent to the Freud Sigmund Freud’s wedding ring............................................................... 42 Museum, at the address above. Buddhist Lohan...................................................................................... 44 Statuette of Thoth................................................................................... 46 All photographs in this publication are © Freud Museum London Statuette of a hunter carrying sea lion..................................................... 50 Linen mummy bandage with vignettes from the Book of the Dead........ 52 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data (data available) Scholar screen......................................................................................... 56 ISBN 978-0-948687-45-7 Ivory Buddha statuette........................................................................... 58 Statuette of Venus................................................................................... 60 Photography Ardon Bar-Hama & Karolina Urbaniak Black-figured alabastron.......................................................................... 62 Design Karolina Urbaniak Ivory phallic amulet................................................................................ 66 Cast relief of ‘Gradiva’............................................................................ 68 Printed in Poland by B3Project Black-figured lekythos............................................................................. 70 Standing figure of Pataikos...................................................................... 72 Figure of naked youthful Eros................................................................. 76 Ivory netsuke of a shishi.......................................................................... 78 Hanukkah lamp...................................................................................... 82 Heart scarab............................................................................................ 84 Oriental jade and gold brooch................................................................. 86 4 5 6 7 FOREWORD by Carol Seigel The Freud Museum London at 20 Maresfield Gardens was the final home of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It was here in this house, on a leafy side street in north London, that the Freud family settled in 1938 after fleeing Nazi persecution in Austria. This book celebrates the richness and importance of the collections housed in 20 Maresfield Gardens, where Sigmund Freud was able, as he wished, ‘to die in freedom’. Freud had created a unique working space for himself over many years in Vienna. Due to an unusual combination of factors, he was able to transplant this extraordinary environment to London. Given the circumstances of Nazi occupation this is in itself an important story of survival against the odds. A visitor today entering Freud’s study in London is as overwhelmed by the multiplicity, the range, the beauty, and the significance of the artefacts jostling for position as the poet Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) was when she visited Freud in Vienna for analyses in the 1930s: ‘Pricelessly lovely objects are displayed here on the shelves to right, to left of me. I have been told about the Professor, his family, his way of life. But no one had told me that this room was lined with treasures.’ H.D. recognised, as we do today, that engaging with Sigmund Freud’s collections was a way of entering into his world, a way of being able to understand the well spring of psychoanalysis and the influences behind the development of Sigmund Freud’s thinking. Freud’s fascination with the myths and legends of the classical world, his passion for collecting, give us a way to approach the development of his radical new method of understanding the human mind and dealing with its disturbances. This was also the final home of Sigmund Freud’s daughter Anna, pioneer of child analysis. Anna lived at Maresfield Gardens for over forty years until her death in 1982, and preserved her father’s study and his collections over these decades. 20 Maresfield Gardens opened as a museum after Anna Freud’s death, and has become both a popular historic house exploring the legacy of the Freuds, and a renowned international centre for exhibitions, research, education and innovative public programmes. One of the Museum’s key aims remains though to care for the house and its collections, to deepen knowledge of the objects in our custody, and to make these as accessible as possible to a wide range of visitors, at home and abroad, in person and online. Yet the price of preserving Freud’s study means that many of the pieces are hard for the casual visitor to view in detail, placed as they are at the back of a case or behind a barrier. In recent years every object in the collection has been photographed, and the beautiful images in this publication by Ardon bar Hama and Karolina Urbaniak enable a far wider audience to view these extraordinary pieces close up. 8 9 Over the years since the Museum opened, research has been carried out on the objects in the collection both within the Museum and by academic experts from outside. The information gathered has contributed to each entry in this publication, and highlighted where there is still further research to be done. The curatorial team at the Museum is grateful to all the academics and specialists who have helped with this research. This publication is one of a series of books showcasing the collections and archives of the Museum. Further information can also be found on the Museum’s website, and serious researchers are welcome to visit the Museum in person to explore its archives, libraries and collections. Our aim is to make the Museum’s beautiful and significant collections better known and available to a global audience. I hope you will enjoy this publication, and visit us at the Freud Museum London when you can. Carol Seigel Director, Freud Museum London March 2019 10 11 SIGMUND FREUD AND HIS COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES by Sophie Leighton By the time of his death, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, had amassed a collection of over 3,000 antiquities. These included pieces from Egypt, Greece, Rome, and South and South-East Asia, as well as South America. Many are small enough to be handled but some are enormous. Some are precious and cherished, and some were bought to be bartered with. Over 2,000 still remain in what was his London home, now the Freud Museum London at 20 Maresfield Gardens. How did Freud’s passion for antiquity develop? What exactly did Freud collect, and why? Why antiquities? As a young man, Freud had a classical education and read widely. His library, of which there are around 2,500 books still remaining in his London home, covers literature, science, art and travel. He had books on hieroglyphs and myths, for example, Shakespeare and Goethe, as well as numerous texts on science and psychology. Freud was interested both in the psychoanalysis of an individual mind but also broader questions of culture. He was absorbed by how societies and civilisations functioned. The development of his collection is a manifestation of this deep interest.1 As Janine Burke outlines2, Freud was deeply impressed with antiquities – when courting his fiancée Martha Bernays he visited the Louvre and wrote to her about it in wonder: Now I remember, of course - yesterday I went to the Louvre, at least to the antiquities wing... I just had time for a fleeting glance at the Assyrian and Egyptian rooms, which I must visit again several times. There were Assyrian kings – tall as trees and holding lions for lapdogs in their arms...and then Egyptian bas-reliefs decorated in fiery colours, veritable colossi of kings, real sphinxes, a dreamlike world.3 Freud was 29 when he wrote this, and his passion for antiquity is already evident. At this time in the 1880s, Freud, spurred on by his wish