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 and Amanita muscaria by name, and confining himself to but a single paragraph on the 'flying ointment' on page 303 of 'Ecstasies...' : In the Sabbath the judges more and more frequently saw the accounts of real, physical events. For a long time the only dissenting voices were those of the people who, referring back to the "Canon episcopi", saw witches and sorcerers as the victims of demonic illusion. In the sixteenth century scientists like Cardano or Della Porta formulated a different opinion : animal metamorphoses, flights, apparitions of the devil were the effect of malnutrition or the use of