Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) photographs taken in preparation for the restoration by Jean Laurent, now in the Courtauld Institute's Witt Library. They show the painting "in situ" in the Quinta del Sordo and are the most reliable indicators of its appearance before restoration. But Laurent's work presents difficulties, not least because some areas of the photographs lack resolution and contain indistinct passages. Photographs from this period tended to darken yellow and red areas while lightening blues and violets. Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) Witches' Sabbath or The Great He-Goat () are names given to an oil mural by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya, completed
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