
Francisco Goya
1798
One of six small panels from Francisco Goya's 'Witches' Sabbath' (El Aquelarre) series of 1798, originally commissioned by the Dukes of Osuna for their country house. Under a full moon, a colossal black goat — the devil incarnate in Spanish folk belief — presides over a congregation of young and withered witches in a rite of grotesque parody. The dark palette and biting caricature distil Goya's sharp Enlightenment critique of ignorance and superstition, now housed in the Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons