A Witches' Sabbath

CC0 Public Domain Designation

c. 1650

Cornelis Saftleven (Dutch, 1607–1681)

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.

Status: On View, Gallery 213
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Cornelis Saftleven
Title: A Witches' Sabbath
Place: Holland (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1640–1660
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 54.3 × 78.2 cm (21 3/8 × 30 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: George F. Porter Collection
Reference Number: 1945.290
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/53495/manifest.json

Maynard Walker, Maynard Walker Gallery (New York, 1946), p. 15 (ill.).
Mary C. Rathbun, “Other Worlds in an Art Gallery: An Exhibition at the Addison Gallery, Phillips Academy, Andover,” Art in America 34 (Jan. 1946), pp. 35–38 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 409.
Wolfgang Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven, 1607–1681: Leben und Werke mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 14 (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1978), pp. 13, 188, cat. 516, ill. 20.
Peter C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America (Grand Rapids, 1986), p. 49.

New York, American British Art Center, Other Worlds, October 1945, cat. 30, traveled to Andover, Mass., Addison Gallery, Phillips Academy, November 1945.

Possibly Maximin Maurel, Paris; possibly sold by him October 4, 1865, as La Sorcière de Sabbat [see H. Mireur, Dictionnaire des ventes d’art, vol. 6 (Paris, 1911), p. 405]. Probably Baron Karl Kuffner de Dioszegh, Castle Dioszegh, Dioszegh, Czechoslovakia; his son Baron Raoul Kuffner de Dioszegh (died 1961) and the Baroness Dioszegh (Tamara de Lempicka, died 1980), presumably removed from Castle Dioszegh between 1930 and 1938 when it was among a group of objects placed at Christie’s, London, from June/July 1938 to May 1939 and marked with the number 804GS, still visible on the back of the panel [acc. to prefatory note in Parke-Bernet November 18, 1948, auction catalogue and electronic correspondence of Marijke Booth of Christie’s, London, November 23, 2004]. Paul Drey, New York, by 1945; sold by him through Maynard Walker, New York, to the Art Institute, 1945.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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