Witches' Sabbath is a 1798 oil on canvas by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya

Francisco Goya

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...

. Goya used the imagery of covens of witches in a number of works, most notably in one of his Black Paintings

Black Paintings

The Black Paintings is the name given to a group of paintings by Francisco Goya from the later years of his life, likely between 1819–1823. They portray intense, haunting themes, reflective of both his fear of insanity and by then, his bleak outlook on humanity...

, Witches' Sabbath or The Great He-Goat (1821–1823) which contains similar sharp political and social overtones. At the time, a bitter struggle raged in Spain between liberals and those in favour of a church and a royalist

Royalist

A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch...

-lead state.

Goya's depictions of such scenes - Witch hunting

Witch-hunt

A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials...

 was one of the main preoccupations of the earlier Logroño Inquisition

Basque witch trials

The Basque witch trials of the 17th century represent the most ambitious attempt at rooting out witchcraft ever undertaken by the Spanish Inquisition...

 - mocked what he saw as medieval fears exploited by the established order for political capital and gain.

Description

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Witches' Sabbath shows the devil in the form of a garland

Garland

A garland is a class of decoration, of which there are many types.Garland may also refer to:-Places:*Garland, Arkansas, a town in Miller County*Garland County, Arkansas*Garland, Maine, a town in Penobscot County...

ed goat, surrounded by a coven of disfigured, young and aging witches in a moonlit barren landscape. The goat possesses large horns and is crowned by a wreath of oak leaves. An old witch holds an emaciated infant in her hands. The devil seems to be acting as priest at an initiation ceremony for the child, though popular superstition at the time believed the devil often fed on children and human foetuses. The skeletons of two infants can be seen; one discarded to the left, the other held by a crone

Crone

The crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle,...

 in the centre foreground.

Typical of the imagery of witchcraft

Witchcraft

Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...

, many of the symbols used are inverted. The goat extends his left rather than right hoof towards the child, while the quarter moon faces out of the canvas at the top left corner. In the middle high-ground, a number of bats can be seen flying overhead, their flocking motion echoing the curve of the crescent moon

Lunar phase

A lunar phase or phase of the moon is the appearance of the illuminated portion of the Moon as seen by an observer, usually on Earth. The lunar phases change cyclically as the Moon orbits the Earth, according to the changing relative positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun...

.

Background

It is one of six of Goya's paintings on the subject of witchcraft owned by the Duchess of Osuna. Their origin is unknown; they may have been commissioned or bought by the liberal Duchess after they were completed. It was intended as a protest against those who upheld and enforced the values of the Spanish Inquisition

Spanish Inquisition

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...

. It is an attack on the superstitious beliefs rife in Spain during a period when tales of midnight gatherings of witches and the appearance of the devil were commonplace among the rural populace, who lived in fear of what they believed were the dark elements of society.

The painting was purchased by the financier José Lázaro Galdiano

José Lázaro Galdiano

José Lázaro Galdiano was a Spanish financier, journalist, publisher and art collector, who at the time of his death owned one of the largest and most significant art collections in Spain. He was described in 1940 as "one of the greatest patrons of culture in nineteenth century Spain"...

, and donated to the Spanish state on his death. Today it is held in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

.