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 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