Art should nourish privately, not collectively—and it is one of the most satisfying of the private preoccupations. Thus it comes as no surprise that Sigmund Freud, that unraveller of the subterranean and thwarted instincts of others, should not only choose to keep his collection of some 2500 artefacts quarantined from his family, but furnish posterity with virtually no clues to its allure for him. That leaves us free to speculate. Why and how did he collect? What was his relationship with his collection? What effect might their proximity have on his musings about humanity at large, which he correctly surmised…