Witches' Sabbath
Chiaroscuro or Colour Woodcut, 1510
Size of original & reproduction 375 x 254 mm, 14 3/4 x 10 inches
Witches and women with power over men feature prominently in Baldung's art, inspiring much of his best and most individual work. Interest in and concern about witches in the popular and clerical imagination was at a peak in the period 1480-1520. It is difficult to get a sense now of when this was serious anxiety over a perceived reality, and when a taste for sensational fantasy like today's horror films. Both attitudes certainly existed, probably mixed together for many individuals.
This striking image was one of Baldung's first chiaroscuro or colour woodcuts, and is his masterpiece in this technique. The process and its origins are described in the note on Burgkmair's Lovers Surprised by Death, but whereas that image that only makes sense when all three blocks are printed together, the line block from this image could be printed by itself. Several such impressions have survived.
This was true of all of Baldung's colour woodcuts. He was using a technique invented only two years previously, and then at the height of fashion. In Germany the craze last only a few years, perhaps partly because printing these pieces was still very difficult and expensive. In Italy and the Netherlands the technique had a much longer life.
The print also appears to be his first image of witches, which became a frequent subject for the rest of his career. It has considerable general similiarities to a drawing by Altdorfer in the Louvre of The Departure for the Sabbath, which is dated 1506. This is in ink on paper tinted red-brown, with white highlights, and features four witches on the ground, with more flying away on goats. The images also have in common their forest setting, the crook “broomsticks”, the smoke, and something of their atmosphere. A witch flying backwards on a goat was also the subject of a Dürer engraving of about 1500.
Click image to enlarge
Size of reproduction:
375 x 254 mm, 14 3/4 x 10 inches
Print price:
£75 €110 $115
£ and € print prices include UK VAT at 17.5%. No UK VAT on Books.
© The Trustees of the British Museum 2006 PD 1834-7-12-73 Bartsch 55
