The Freud Museum

 

Sigmund Freud, his wife Martha and daughter Anna came to London as refugees from the Nazis. When the Nazi party came to power in 1933 in Germany, the works of Freud and other Jewish intellectuals were burnt in public. Austria was annexed by the Nazis in 1938 and later Sigmund Freud described his treatment: 'I saw the scientific society I had founded dissolved, our institutions destroyed, our printing press taken over by the invaders, the books I had published confiscated or reduced to pulp and my children expelled from their professions'.

The house in Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead,  was purchased by the Freuds' architect son Ernst in 1938. He made a number of alterations including knocking down a wall to create a combined library, study and consulting rooms downstairs.

Freud was an avid reader and transported over 1600 books to London, most of which are in this room.

. When Sigmund Freud came here he was able to bring most of his belongings including his desk, couch, carpets, library, pictures and collection of antiquities. He recreated his unique working environment from Vienna to London. These rooms are still as they were when Freud lived and worked here. 

 Even the old bookshelves were re-assembled here. On arrival in England, despite his ill health, Freud continued to write and receive a few patients. It was here that he wrote his final books which were only published after his death. He died here on 23rd September 1939, three weeks after the Second World War had been declared.

This is the couch, possibly one of the most famous couches in the world. In his lifetime Freud treated over five hundred patients - most of them lay on this couch. Freud would sit in the green tub chair at the far end of the couch so that the patient could not see him.

The antiquities Sigmund Freud collected were integral to his work. To Freud, archaeology and psychoanalysis were closely connected. He explained his love for archaeology in that the psychoanalyst, like the archaeologist in his excavations, must uncover layer after layer of the patient's psyche to find the treasure.

Anna Freud (1895-1982) was a pioneer in child analysis and the study of child development. After leaving Vienna in 1938 she lived and worked in this house for over forty years. It was Anna's wish that the house should be become a museum devoted to the life and work of her father. The house opened as a museum in 1986.

This writing table was a present from Sigmund to his daughter Anna when she was 18 in an attempt to console her for being left out of her sister Sophie's wedding. Anna was away in Italy at the time and her father told her not to return for the wedding but to continue with her trip.

There are treasures and antiquities all over the house. I am amazed at how so many of Freud's

belongings were transported  to London just before the outbreak of World War 2 

  

Dali met with Freud in London and made some quick sketches but due to Freud's failing health Dali was unable to discuss his ideas about psychoanalysis with Freud.

Only Sigmund and Martha's daughter Anna and grandson W. Ernest pursued careers in psychoanalysis but many other descendants have made their mark on the world. Their grandson Lucien Freud was one of the 20th century's most famous artists. Clement Freud, another grandson, was a well known broadcaster and politician.