Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) posthumously. Around 1874, some fifty years after his death, the plaster murals were taken down and transferred to canvas supports. "Witches' Sabbath" was much wider before transfer – it was the broadest of the Black Paintings. During the transfer about of the painting was cut from the right-hand side. At its reduced dimensions of 141 × 436 cm (56 × 172 in), its framing is unusually tightly cropped, which some critics find adds to its haunted, spectral aura, although others believe it distorts Goya's intentions by moving the centre of balance and reducing the painting's impact. Goya did not title
Witches' Sabbath (Goya, 1798) "Witches' Sabbath" shows the devil in the form of a garlanded 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 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 fetuses. The skeletons of two infants can be seen; one discarded to the left, the other held by a crone