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A Witches' Sabbath
Cornelis Saftleven (Dutch, 1607–1681)
c. 1650
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 54.3 × 78.2 cm (21 3/8 × 30 3/4 in.); Framed: 77.1 × 101.6 × 10.2 cm (30 3/8 × 40 × 4 in.)
- Culture
- Holland
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- George F. Porter Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
A witch riding a goat and brandishing a broomstick charges out from the left edge of this scene to chase away dozens of devils. Such ghoulish subjects had long been appreciated in Northern Europe for the way they combined a sense of wild, supernatural threat with scientific observation of the natural world—seen here in the detailed moth wings of the howling figure on the right and the deft rendering of the frog’s splayed body. Cornelis Saftleven responded to Dutch buyers’ evolving taste by treating his fantastic subjects with fine brushstrokes and a limited color palette.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
