This year, 6 May to be precise, is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sigmund Freud. One event marking this is an exhibition of 12 small scale sculpted figures—representative of the changing group of favourites Freud kept on his desk—selected from the eclectic collection of 2000 Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Chinese, and near Eastern antiquities he amassed between 1896 and 1939.

Originally displayed in his study and consulting rooms at Berggasse 19 in Vienna, Freud's collection has since 1938 been housed at 20 Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead, where he spent the last few months of his life after fleeing the Nazis. When he died, his youngest daughter, Anna, left his study and library untouched. It was crammed with his furniture, books, and antiquities. In 1986, four years after her death, the house and its contents became the Freud Museum. One of the most evocative houses in London, …