The carpet on Freud's sofa

Who is Freud?

While reading the biography of the founder of the school of psychoanalysis and psychology, Sigmund Freud, I came across this text: “The famous sofa was a production in itself, piled with cushions, and additional carpets for patients to use if they were cold, and covered with Shiraz Persian carpets.” When I read that text, I had to Looking for all the information about this rug...

Peter Jay describes the rug as being of the Shiraz type. Shiraz is a city in the Iranian province of Fars, the place where the rugs were produced in the late 19th century, and which is famous for its rhombic motif. (in the form of a diamond).

Freud's sofa as it is kept at the Freud Museum in London

Design and pattern of the rug

The rug, which covers the entire sofa, was made in the latter half of the 19th century and was presented to Freud by his cousin, Moritz Freud in 1883, according to Marina Werner in her article Freud's Couch: A Historical Case Study.

Initially called Smyrna carpets, this type of carpet is now believed to be from Qashqai, made by the sheep- and goat-herding tribe of the same name in the eastern province of Fars.

Quoting Marina Werner in her article, where she brilliantly uses the design of the rug covering Freud's sofa as a metaphor for his analysis:

The central three diamond medallions of the rug on Freud's couch are framed within several rims of different widths and details, one within the other, ten in number, but others may distinguish them differently. Going toward the core, it is as if Freud chose to give his patients a place to lie, dream, and speak, which reproduces patterns of patterning, knotting, repetition, intertwining, and combining what was there to decode as he listened to the patient.

place rug today

Today in the Freud Museum in London, this rug provides an honest insight into the personal life of someone who spent his career delving into the personal lives of those he treated.

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Translated from rugs4.com