Witches’ Sabbath, Cornelis Saftleven (c.1650)

Witches’ Sabbath, Cornelis Saftleven (c.1650) Cornelis Saftleven’s Witches’ Sabbath plunges the viewer into a churning vision of chaos and the supernatural. At the center, an old woman astride a goat—broomstick raised—charges forward, her wild energy setting the tone for the scene. Around her, grotesque figures twist and howl, their features rendered with a precision that borders on the scientific, as in the delicate moth wings of one tormented creature. Saftleven, a master of Netherlandish fantasy, draws on a tradition pioneered by Hieronymus Bosch and carried forward by Jan Brueghel, infusing the genre with his own blend of wit, menace, and eerie naturalism. While the painting revels in theatrical invention, its controlled composition and painterly detail reveal the hand of an artist working for a discerning, sophisticated audience. Witches’ Sabbath is less a warning against the occult than a virtuoso exploration of it—an artwork where hellfire, folklore, and the forces of nature con