The Freud Desk Follow-up:

More wild ideas (with maps!)

As Freud might say, sometimes a desk is just a desk, but I’m going to feel pretty foolish if that turns out to be the case with Robert Galbraith’s latest header, which is not just a picture of Freud’s famous desk from London’s Freud museum, but part of a Cathie Pilkington exhibit that made a notable substitution: Freud’s alabaster Thoth baboon for one of Pilkington’s own statuettes, the many-breasted El Shaddai.

In the 24 hours since I first blogged about the header, I’ve done a bit more research, had some great online chats with other Serious Strikers, and was fortunate to pick up some information that Redditors Random-Occurance365, TheFamousWriter and thegiraffe7 provided. It was clear there would need to be a follow-up post.

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The major question is, was the 2025 Housekeeper exhibit photo chosen deliberately? I don’t claim to be an expert in online photo searches, but my efforts through Google Lens did not turn up any identical photos, except in the header itself and in blog posts reporting about the header. The pictures that were the closest match as far as the angle of the photo goes all had Thoth on place, and the pictures of the exhibit that had El Shaddai in place were all made from a different perspective. That makes me think this was either one of Galbraith’s own photos, or obtained from someone who has never posted it online, This makes it more likely that a picture featuring El Shaddai was an intentional choice.

As I pointed out in the last post, while it will be easy for Strike or Robin (more likely Robin, since she’s the one with the psychology interest) to visit London’s Freud museum during Sleep Tight, Evangeline, actually seeing the desk as pictured in the header require a time-turner. However, as a brilliant bit of sleuthing by TheFamousWriter turned up, there was a Cathie Pilkington exhibit Robin could have seen in London in 2017. Furthermore, either the book is planned around the timing and location of this exhibit, or we have the biggest coincidence since Strike located Samhain Athorn by getting a cup of tea and waiting for him to walk by.

As readers no doubt recall, THM ended on April 7, 2017, with an emotionally overwrought Robin leaving the Denmark Street office to meet RFM at the Ritz. She is a mess, not only fearing what she is sure will be a proposal from Murphy, but reeling from her encounter with Strike on the stairs and his shouted declaration of love and marriage proposal. Readers had already noted that her route to the Ritz will take her through Picadilly Circus, and the site of the Flobberworms proposal, almost exactly seven years earlier. We have been told that STE will pick up 5 minutes after THM left off.

From April 1-14, 2017, Cathie Pilkington had art exhibit called Anatomy of a Doll at the Royal Academy of Art, where she is a professor of sculpture. If you look on the map above, you will see that Robin’s route also takes her by the Royal Academy. You can see pictures of the exhibit here and read some reviews here and here.

Is there any chance that Pilkington’s sculpture work could wind up featured in Sleep Tight, Evangeline? Is it pure coincidence that the same artist who created the many-breasted figure in the header has another set of works perfectly positioned to waylay Robin on the way to RFM’s birthday dinner and the silver shackle that awaits her there? Both El Shaddai and the dolls give off the same strange and macabre vibes as Bombyx Mori and The Ink Black Heart cartoon, the creative products of Books 2 and 6, the predicted connectors to STE. And those books also had their share of disturbing sculptures: Daniel Chard’s Damien Hirst dissected angel and Michael Fancourt’s Fury sculpture in The Silkworm, and all the statues on the Highgate graves in TIBH. We should also remember that creepy dolls were one of the earlier header clues to the next book. Are all these clues pointing the same direction?

There are certainly some practical barriers to Robin taking a detour to the Pilkington exhibit on her way to the Ritz. For one thing, the exhibit was only open for two tours a day, and the latest one was at 2 PM, so it will certainly be closed by the time Robin passes by. And, in her current state of mind, I can’t imagine that viewing a exhibit of “unsettling sculptural works” is tops on her list of things to do. The only way I can envision it happening is if Robin decides to dash into the Academy Courtyard to hide (maybe she sees RFM’s car approaching, or, worse, his parents...or hers??) and someone from the institution offers her refuge in the building. Maybe one of her old friends from North Grove is a student there? Who knows, Ms. Pilkington herself might be there, prepping for the master class she was teaching the next day, and invite Robin to join. It would be better than drawing Pez Pierce’s penis. And probably neither Strike or Murphy would think to look for her there.

As I said, it could be that the El Shaddai statuette in the header has no significance whatsoever, and all this means is that Dr. Broccoli is a Freudian, or perhaps that we’ll see some Freud quotations* as epigraphs. But it is a weird thing to wind up accidentally in the header. But, as more than one person has pointed out to me, Artemis is depicted with what are commonly thought of as multiple breasts in her statue at her famous temple at Ephesus, though they are more likely eggs, gourds or the testicles of sacrificed bulls. It would be fitting if the El Shaddai figure somehow connects to Denmark Street’s own Artemis, defender of women, who refuses to be characterized as either walking tits or a provider of eggs.

Thoughts? Or are you wondering if I need a therapist myself to get over these delusions?

*I’m not fond enough of Freud to want to see his words as previews to all 100+ chapters, especially with alternatives like Tennyson’s Evangeline, Shakespeare and the Psalms that have been mentioned. But I could maybe see Freud quotations as Part epigraphs, like Gray’s Anatomy was for TIBH