One Hour at the Freud Museum London

MUSEUM GUIDE | CABANA TRAVEL | WORLD OF CABANA

In this series, we travel the world’s great museums through the eyes and minds of selected curators, asking just one question: if you only had an hour to spare, what would you see? This week, Bryony Davies, curator at the Freud Museum London, selects eight objects from the Museum’s 40 Objects, 40 Years exhibition, offering a glimpse into the private lives, curiosities and connections behind one of London’s most intriguing houses.

BY LUCREZIA LUCAS | CABANA TRAVEL | 9 OCTOBER 2026

The Freud Museum, photo by Karolina Heller

In 2026, London's Freud Museum is celebrating 40 years of the museum and the extraordinary collection of artworks and objects, amassed by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. A special exhibition, 40 Objects, 40 Years, reflects the diverse nature of the collection. Freud was an avid collector of antiquities, and many of the most precious items from his personal collection will be brought out of his study to be seen up close.

Family treasures will also be on display: objects from the Freuds’ domestic and personal spaces which illustrate the house as a former family home, and items from long-term storage will be seen for the very first time. The exhibition runs through February 14, 2027 and provides a unique opportunity to see rarely displayed or never-before-seen items in the museum.

Chanukkah Lamp, Northern France or Germany, 13th Century

Chanukkah Lamp, 13th century, © the Freud Museum

This Chanukkah lamp is one of the most intriguingly personal of Freud’s antiquities. Dating from 13th century Europe, it is a fully intact menorah, a lamp used to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Chanukkah.

Modern menorahs are generally designed to hold candles and stand on tables. But the Freud family’s lamp is oil-burning and hangs by a hook on the wall. It is a very early example of its kind, with animal figures in relief and a Hebrew text inscription: For the commandment is a lamp, and the teaching is light [Proverbs 6:23].

Sigmund Freud was famously a non-practising Jew. In Moses and Monotheism, his last published work, he wrote: ‘How enviable, to those of us who are poor in faith, do those enquirers seem who are convinced of the existence of a Supreme Being!’ Though his wife Martha was born into an Orthodox Jewish family, and was more observant, this lamp was never used by the family as a religious tool to observe the Jewish holiday.

As a collector of antiquities, Freud may simply have liked the lamp as an historical artefact. But it could have a deeper meaning. Freud never tried to hide his Jewishness and in an era of ever-increasing anti-Semitism he was secular, but never a non-Jew. While not used for any religious purpose, perhaps this Chanukkah lamp served as reminder of identity.

Sigmund Freud’s Loden Overcoat, Austrian, 1938

Sigmund Freud (wearing his loden overcoat) and Martha Freud in the garden at 20 Maresfield Gardens, 1939

This coat was bought specially by Sigmund Freud for his journey to England in 1938. Freud was leaving his home in Vienna for the last time, after the Nazi occupation made it impossible to continue his life and work in Austria. He can be seen wearing it in photographs from the time, travelling on the Orient Express to Paris, then on to Victoria station in London.

The coat was made by F. Turkzynski, a clothing store in Vienna, from Loden, a lightweight wool cloth ideal for travel. Sigmund’s daughter, Anna, often wore the coat after Freud’s death to take walks on nearby Hampstead Heath. The front pocket still contains evidence of Anna wearing it: a folded clear plastic rain hat with blue polka dots and blue cotton ties, and a small blue paper travel ticket marked 'Tourist Economy' with faded date stamp - 1965.

Anna Freud’s biographer describes Anna on her deathbed, asking for the overcoat to be brought to her. She sat wrapped in her father’s wool coat, which had accompanied them both on their journey away from their homeland, into exile in England, and from there into old age.

Fayum mummy portrait, Egyptian, Roman period 250-300CE

Fayum Mummy Portrait of a Man with Curly Hair and Beard. Unknown artist, 250-300 CE, Freud Museum London

This Fayum portrait was affixed to a mummy from the Roman period (250-300 CE) and was possibly created while its subject was still living. Fayum portraits were designed to be as lifelike as possible.

Much of Freud’s Egyptian collection relates to death, and the preoccupations with self-funeral planning resonated with Freud’s ‘death drive’ theory. This theory suggested that there is a human instinct to return to the inorganic state. But it could also be argued that ancient Egypt’s preoccupation with the afterlife might be linked to the ‘life drive’ – the afterlife being an alternative to the return to an inorganic state. Preoccupation with funerary rituals, elaborate preparations and beliefs could reflect hopes for the afterlife, and a desire to extend their existence beyond death.

This portrait spent years on display on the wall of Freud’s study, just next to the famous psychoanalytic couch. As a museum object it is treated differently. Due to conservation concerns it is stored in an environmentally controlled environment but for a short time it can be seen on display as part of the exhibition 40 Objects, 40 Years.

Lucian Freud’s childhood letter and drawings, British, date unknown [1930s]

Lucian Freud’s childhood letter and drawings

Born in Berlin in 1922, Lucian Freud was the grandson of Sigmund Freud and became one of the most prominent British artists of the 20th century.

In 1933, Lucian and his family moved to Britain to escape the threat of the Nazis, becoming British subjects in 1939. This letter from Lucian to his father, the architect Ernst Freud, was written while away at boarding school in Devon. In it he tells his father he has been swimming, providing a little self-portrait of the activity. He also asks if he’s built a skyscraper yet, with an illustrated joke about the German word which translates literally as ‘cloud-scratcher’.

His letters at this age are still all written in German and often report incidents from school life or request certain items be bought. Many letters, like this one, are illustrated with small drawings. He has signed the letter boldly with the nickname he shared with his mother, Lucie: LUX.

Figure of youthful Eros, Asia Minor Myrina, mid-2nd century BCE

Figure of naked youthful Eros, flying with left leg forward

Freud bought this impressive figure of Eros in September 1934, four years after publishing Civilization and its Discontents, his essay on the power of Eros. Freud’s collection includes at least six statues of Eros, but this is the finest example. In his work Freud identified the basic life instinct as ‘Eros’. In defining Eros as the life instinct and linking it to the libido, Freud referred to the classical concept of love.

Traditionally Eros is associated with a bow and arrow, but this figure is more likely to have held a musical instrument, perhaps a lyre, which is now missing. The colour and texture of the terracotta surface is varied but would once have been brightly decorated. Look closely and you will see traces of blue and gold remaining on Eros’ wings and red in his hair.

Reproduction print of Oedipus and the Sphinx by Ingres, 1827 (reproduction), Paper

Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1827, after Ingres Claude-Ferdinand Gaillard, French. After Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, French.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ painting Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808–1827) marked the beginning of the modern interpretation of Oedipus as philosopher. In the Greek legend of Thebes, the Sphinx’s riddle is solved by Oedipus, which Freud identified as the original scene of the instinct for knowledge.

Freud analysed the encounter between Oedipus and the Sphinx as reflecting the intricate relation between knowledge, desire and sexuality. This print hung in Freud’s consulting room, illustrating the significance of the myth to his theory of the ‘Oedipus complex’ and the role of mythology in Freud’s thinking.

Original artworks are rare in Freud’s collection as he was much more interested in collecting antiquities. But Freud wrote extensively about the psychology of the creative process and reflected on the lives and legacies of several famous artists, including Michelangelo and Da Vinci. As such, Freudian psychoanalysis has been a huge influence on modern artists and art critics.

Statuette of kneeling figure, Balinese, 1930s

Statuette of kneeling figure, Balinese, attributed to Ida Bagus Njana, 1930s.

This Balinese carving shows a meditating woman being haunted by evil spirits and dwellers of the underworld. With eyes closed, she is surrounded by snakes, scorpions and spiders. These figures could be literal or figurative allusions of a human mind enduring a frightening experience during meditation. It was produced by one of the Balinese Master carvers of the 1930s, mostly likely Ida bagus Njana.

Around the time of this figure’s creation, Western anthropologists Maragret Mead and Gregory Bateson visited Bali. They invited local artists to sketch their dreams, believing that they offered a unique window into Balinese inner lives. Freud had long regarded dream analysis as the ‘royal road’ to the unconscious as he wrote in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900).

As with many of Freud’s collection items, it is not known when or how Freud acquired this fascinating object, and no letter or diary entry records its arrival in Freud’s study. As his collection was personal and ever-changing, he rarely noted down the appearance or provenance of objects. This item, however, is one of the biggest mysteries – it is not an ancient artefact purchased from a Viennese antique shop, but rather a modern carving, contemporary to Freud. He never travelled to Asia himself, so it was likely a gift from a friend or admirer.

Anna Freud’s Pfaff sewing machine, German, c. 1920s

Anna Freud’s Pfaff sewing machine, c. 1920s

For the past 40 years Anna Freud’s sewing machine has lived amongst boxes in the Museum’s attic. It is being displayed for the first time ever in our 40 Objects, 40 Years exhibition, along with a selection of items Anna wove, knitted and stitched.

Anna Freud was the only one of Freud’s six children to follow him into psychoanalysis. After first training as a teacher, Anna became a pioneer of child psychoanalysis, making important theoretical and technical innovations, and bringing about huge changes to how children are seen, understood and cared for.

Anna was also an avid seamstress and weaver, and this German-made machine likely travelled with her other belongings from Vienna to London. Weaving and sewing provided a time for calm and concentration. She was even known to compose some of her lectures while weaving at her loom. It was Anna Freud’s idea that people who worked with their mind needed a creative activity which also involved their hands, for a “good balance”. This sewing machine offered her that escape from purely mental pursuits.

Anna and Sigmund Freud, 1929 © Freud Museum London.