The Duchess of Alba and la Beata Beata" is considered to form part of Goya's "caprichos", and was painted shortly after he fell deaf. It is signed "Goya in 1795" in the lower right corner. It is in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, having been acquired from a private collection. Goya portrayed María Cayetana de Silva a number of other times, notably "The White Duchess" of the same year and the 1797 "Portrait of the Duchess of Alba". The Duchess of Alba and la Beata The Duchess of Alba and "la Beata" (or The Duchess of Alba and the Pious Woman; Spanish: La duquesa
Witches' Sabbath undoubtedly hallucinogenic, were not among the ingredients listed in recipes for the flying ointment. The active ingredients in such unguents were primarily, not fungi, but plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae, most commonly Atropa belladonna (Deadly Nightshade) and Hyoscyamus niger (Henbane), belonging to the tropane alkaloid-rich tribe Hyoscyameae. Other tropane-containing, nightshade ingredients included the famous Mandrake Mandragora officinarum, Scopolia carniolica and Datura stramonium, the Thornapple. The alkaloids Atropine, Hyoscyamine and Scopolamine present in these Solanaceous plants are not only potent (and highly toxic) hallucinogens, but are also fat-soluble and capable of being absorbed through unbroken human skin. Witches' Sabbath The