polity bourbon spainconcept:era modern

Witches' Sabbath

Name: Provenio Provenance Knowledge Graph
License: https://provenio.art/terms

Oil on canvas (1798) by Francisco Goya, depicting a demonic goat figure presiding over a gathering of witches who offer infants. Painted for the Osuna family's country house. Now held at the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid.

Scholarly Significance

Early Goya occult subject; predates the Black Paintings and establishes his engagement with superstition and Enlightenment critique.

Notes

·One of six paintings commissioned by the Duchess of Osuna for the Casa del Labrador (summer house) at La Alameda de Osuna, 1797–1798.
·Depicts the Devil in the form of a goat surrounded by witches who offer babies and children.
·Distinguished from the later Black Paintings version of the same subject (1820–1823, Prado) — this is smaller and more explicit.
·Goya's engagement with witchcraft is connected to his Enlightenment critique of superstition; the Caprichos (1799) treat similar themes satirically.
·Lázaro Galdiano bequest to the Spanish state, 1947.