On the Couch

As I reported back in May, Freud's couch has been in desperate need of TLC. Given to him by his patient Madame Benvenisti in 1891, the couch has aged and frayed over the last 122 years. An appeal was launched in May and the money quickly found from the AKO Foundation and anonymous donors, allowing the museum to plan repairs to the piece of Biedermeier furniture on which Freud's patients would lie.

From 16 to 26 September the couch will undergo its much needed conservation and visitors be able to view the work at close range, as Poppy Singer mends torn seams and frayed webbing in a temporary ‘studio’ to be set up in the Dining Room of Freud’s last home at Maresfield Gardens. The process is going to be filmed and photographed by Jeremy Millar, whose work attempts to 're-activate' important events in cultural history, allowing us to reconsider Freud's couch and the stories and histories it has absorbed. I'll be back at the Freud Museum on 28 September, shortly after restoration work has been completed, to talk about another type of mythology, that of Freud and Wagner.

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