Introduction
by Erica Davies, Director, Freud Museum, London
`All the Egyptians, Chinese and Greeks have arrived, have stood up to the journey with very little damage, and look much more impressive here than at Berggasse.' Sigmund Freud's letter to his friend Jeanne Lampl de Groot expresses his contentment that, after months of anxiety and turmoil, he, his family and all his possessions were now settled in their new home at 20 Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead, London. The large brick house was to provide a haven for Freud where he could pass the last year of his life in relative peace and contentment.
The heart of this house was, and still is, Freud's study and consulting room, where his collection of antiquities and library were set up in 1938, arranged in much the same fashion as in Vienna. The unique atmosphere is retained today. The rooms glow with the rich colours of oriental rugs which cover the floor, tables and the psychoanalytic couch; while the walls are lined with shelves, dismantled and moved from Berggasse 19 and filled with books reflecting Freud's professional interests-neurology, psychology, psychoanalysis-and his intense passion for archaeology, ancient history and anthropology. Among the books are glass cases filled with many hundreds of antiquities. The contents of these books and cabinets were the raw materials which would sustain Freud's intellect and feed the imagination of the Viennese neurologist to whom `the Secret of Dreams was revealed'.
The collection itself is an eclectic mix of Egyptian, Near Eastern, Classical, Oriental and South American pieces, reflecting the extraordinary breadth of Freud's taste. As it is shown to a wider public through exhibitions such as this, ever more layers of the man and his passion are revealed. Many pieces clearly held particular meaning-the figures of Athena and Eros are perhaps the most obvious examples-yet as much of the collection was acquired for its romantic and aesthetic appeal.
This will be the first time that Freud's antiquities have been shown in Asia. It is particularly appropriate, and the Freud Museum is delighted, that such a significant event be hosted by Gallery Mikazuki, whose long and distinguished history in the field of collecting and connoisseurship in Japan is well-known to all. Particular thanks are due to Mr Hideo Itagaki, President of Gallery Mikazuki, for his generous and far-sighted support.
The Freud Museum
20 Maresfield Gardens London NW3 5SX
Telephone 0171 435 2002 or 0171 435 5167
Facsimile 0171 431 5452
e.mail: freud@gn.apc.org
This loan exhibition of antiquities from the Freud Museum in London\\the first ever to travel to Japan\\will surprise many people,as much for the light the collection sheds on the founder of psychoanalysis as for the objects themselves.Frued has been scrutinised from many angles,but his love for archaeology and his insatiable appetite for collecting are aspects of a complex personality which have received relatively little public exposure.
Frued's life encompassed the discoveries of Heinrich Schliemann at Troy and Howard Carter in the tomb of Tutankhamun,events which fired the imagination of the world.
Freud's own involvement with the remote past went back to the family Bible,which was lavishly illustrated with images of bizarre Egyptian gods and ancient temples.These illustrations evidently made a lasting impression,for archaeology was to become a lifelong obsession.It was an obsession that Freud's patients would be forced to share:surrounded by cases crammed with ancient detritus,the analysands reclined on the famous couch and opened their souls(in Vienna,at least)beneath a photogravure of the temple of RamessesII at Abu Simbel.The ancient past,in short,was Freud's passion.As he admitted to his friend,the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig,in 1931,eI have actually read more archaeology than psychology'.
By 1938,Freud had lived in Vienna for 79 years.As a Jew,he found life there after the Nazi takeover increasingly difficult.Not only was he barred from practice and his books proscribed,but on one occasion he was physically threatened by storm troopers who forced their way into his home at Berggasse 19.The old man's nerve finally broke when the Gestapo briefly detained his daughter,Anna.On her release from custody,Freud determined that they should emigrate.Four sisters who were too old to travel decided to stay behind;they would later perish in the concentration camps.
Freud's friends around the World rallied to and helped to expedite the departure from Vienna.Thanks to his international standing and the unexpected sympathy of the Nazi official charged with overseeing the move,Freud was allowed to take with him not only his books and furniture but the bulk of the Egyptian,Near Eastern,Classical and Oriental pieces he had amassed over the years.These objects found a new and permanent home at 20 Maresfield Gardens in the London suburb of Hampstead.
Collecting was an addiction Freud was never able to satisfy.He purchased extensively and at every opportunity,summing up his philosophy in 1938:eA collection to which there are no additions is really dead'.Freud's magpie inclinations imbue his collection with a rare charm,and he was over the years able to acquire several pieces of first rate importance.A number of them,purchased from Viennese dealers such as Robert Lustig,are highlighted in this exhibition.Fine bronze figures of the ancient Egyptian gods Osiris,Isis and the infant Horus,Imhotep and Bes rub shoulders with Chinese terracottas,Greek vases,a bronze Janus-headed flask and Freud's personal signet:a Roman intaglio later set as a brooch by his daughter Anna. Freud's antiquities were his children,and he knew them all intimately.The polished surface of a baboon sacred to Thoth,the Egyptian god of learning,recalls Freud's habit of handling favoured pieces while talking.
Though there is no direct evidence for it,the suggestion has been made that Freud first began to collect in response to the death of his father,Jacob;as time went on,his antiquities would offer much needed comfort during the years of professional isolation,a silent audience representing the wisdom(and support)of the ages.Excavating the ground had provided for Freud an appropriate metaphor for the excavation of the mind;the objects with which he surrounded himself came in time to stand for the unearthed truths of his science.
Sigmund Freud died at his Hampstead home,now the Freud Museum,on 23 September 1939.A collector to the end,his ashes lie in an ancient Greek vase in the crematorium at Golders Green,north London.
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