Artwork Page for The Witch (Night Piece)

Details / Information for The Witch (Night Piece)

The Witch (Night Piece)

1626

Jan van de Velde

(Dutch, 1620–1662)
Culture
Netherlands
Medium
engraving
Measurements
Platemark: 21.6 x 29 cm (8 1/2 x 11 7/16 in.); Sheet: 24 x 31.5 cm (9 7/16 x 12 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams Collection 1943.635
Catalogue raisonné
Hollstein XXXIII.53.152
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

This nocturnal scene depicts a bare-breasted sorceress concocting her evil brew in the company of bizarre beasts. She stands within a "magic circle" scratched into the ground, the supernaturally consecrated space for witchcraft—a likely inspiration for the circular forms of Salvator Rosa's paintings. She overturns a horn into her cauldron engulfed in billowing flames; mixing with the powder are two streams of ash that spew forth from pipes held in the anus of a somersaulting demon at left. The swirling, decorative composition and the variety of grotesque creatures making knowing and silly faces at the viewer add elements of whimsy and farce to the ostensibly serious occult subject.
Print in black ink of a witch with a light skin-tone, rippling dress uncovering her breasts, facing a mob of monsters gathering left-streaking flames of a central cauldron. Her hair blows leftward, over her head, as she pours a powder from a horn into the cauldron. On the left, monsters grin, drink, play cards, smoke a pipe, and powder arcs into the cauldron from two pipes sticking from a somersaulting monster's anus.

The Witch (Night Piece)

1626

Jan van de Velde

(Dutch, 1620–1662)
Netherlands

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