Witches' Sabbath (Goya, 1798) during a period when tales of midnight gatherings of witches and the appearance of the devil were commonplace among the rural populace. They reflect the artist's disdain for the popular tendency towards superstition and the church-led return to medieval fears. Goya's depictions of such scenes mocked what he saw as medieval fears exploited by the established order for political and capital gain. Witches' Sabbath (Goya, 1798) Witches' Sabbath () is a 1798 oil on canvas by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Today it is held in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid. It was purchased in 1798 along with five other
Witches' Sabbath Witches' Sabbath The Witches' Sabbath is a term applied to a gathering of those considered to practice witchcraft and other rites. Prior to the late 19th century, it is difficult to locate any English use of the term 'sabbath' to denote a gathering of witches. The phrase is used by Henry Charles Lea's in his History of the Inquisition (1888). Writing in 1900, German historian Joseph Hansen who was a correspondent and a German translator of Lea's work, frequently uses the shorthand phrase "hexensabbat" to interpret medieval trial records, though any consistently recurring term is noticeably rare in the copious