Autograph letter signed in German to Mr. Pollak de Freud, Sigmund - 1928

Freud, Sigmund (1856-1939). Autograph letter signed, in German, to Austrian artist Max Pollak (1886-1970). 1 page, on his personal stationery. Vienna, August 5, 1928. 230 x 150 mm. Fine. English translation included.

To the painter and printmaker Max Pollak, thanking him for sending a copy of his color aquatint of the dancer Tatjana Barbakoff to "Frau Eitingon." This refers to the wife of Freud's colleague, the noted psychoanalyst Max Eitingon (1881-1943), who had undergone analysis with Freud in 1908-9 and went on to found the Berlin Psychoanalytic Clinic, the International Psychoanalytic Association and several other psychoanalytic organizations. The etching was evidently a gift from Freud, for he states that "I would gladly have sent the purchase amount of S140 or $20 to you in Stockholm, if I had been sure you wouldn't soon be changing your location in Sweden. If I hear nothing more from you, then I will remain in your debt until we are both in Vienna again." Pollak had recently emigrated from Vienna to the United States, which is why Freud gave a dollar figure for the purchase price. Freud had known Pollak since at least 1914, when Pollak was commissioned to make a large portrait etching of Freud seated at his desk among his antiquities. Freud himself owned a copy of Pollak's etching of Barbakoff, which is now preserved at the Freud Museum in London. Regarding Freud as an art collector, see "Sigmund Freud and Art" (1989).