It’s one of the most famous pieces of furniture in the world but the couch where Sigmund Freud psychoanalysed his patients has been showing its age.

London’s Freud Museum last week launched a £5,000 appeal to conserve the historic seat which was bought in Vienna in 1891 and came over here with its owner in 1938.

“A spring has pierced the fabric and stuffing is coming out,” said the museum’s acting director, Dawn Kemp.
But the appeal proved so successful that it has been able to set aside money for further conservation work, on Freud’s “gods”, his prized 2,000-piece collection of antiquities.