The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Print in black ink on cream paper of an interior with a bearded groom laying on the floor vertically across the page, feet facing us, and a horse behind him, rear end facing us and looking back towards us. To the right, a woman with breasts sagging out of her clothing brandishes a flaming torch with her right hand. A horse comb lays next to the groom's left hand, and a pitchfork under his legs.

The Bewitched Groom

1544

Hans Baldung

(German, 1484/85–1545)
Germany
woodcut
Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund 1930.539
Catalogue raisonné: Karlsruhe 279.77 ; Hollstein 237
Location: Not on view

Description

Envious witches were maligned as deceitful, sexualized women, hags who toppled righteous men in their lustful quests. Baldung's bizarre and unsettling image depicts a noble male figure lying unconscious in an open room, as a glaring mare (a symbol of unrestrained sexuality) and flailing witch peer in. The angular nose and chin and sagging, bare breasts of the malevolent hag echo the face and bony chest of Veneziano's emaciated personification of Death.
  • "Two Woodcuts by Hans Baldung (Grün)." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art18, no. 8 (October 1931): 155-157. Reproduced: front cover; Mentioned: p. 156. www.jstor.org
  • The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).
    16th Century German Woodcuts. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 24-February 26, 1939).
    Inaugural Exhibition of the New Print Gallery - Prints from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 10-November 13, 1938).
    16th Century Prints from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 4-29, 1935).
    Prints of the Fifteenth to Twentieth Century from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (June 5-September 12, 1934).
  • {{cite web|title=The Bewitched Groom|url=false|author=Hans Baldung|year=1544|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1930.539