The author presents a case study based on two cognitive metaphors closely linked to images. The series of superimposed photographs of portraits of family members was an experiment carried out by Francis Galton, evoked by Sigmund Freud and analysed by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gregory Bateson. The family tree diagram, which shows the genealogical relationship between a series of manuscripts of the same work, was proposed by Jacob Bernays, the uncle of Martha Bernays, Sigmund Freud's wife. The implications of this diagram (and, more generally, of Bernays' work) did not escape Freud's attention.