Description

A witch riding a goat and brandishing a broomstick charges out from the left edge of this scene to chase away dozens of devils. Such ghoulish subjects had long been appreciated in Northern Europe for the way they combined a sense of wild, supernatural threat with scientific observation of the natural world—seen here in the detailed moth wings of the howling figure on the right and the deft rendering of the frog’s splayed body. Cornelis Saftleven responded to Dutch buyers’ evolving taste by treating his fantastic subjects with fine brushstrokes and a limited color palette.

Provenance

Possibly Maximin Maurel, Paris; possibly sold by him October 4, 1865, as La Sorcière de Sabbat [see H. Mireur, Dictionnaire des ventes d’art, vol. 6 (Paris, 1911), p. 405]. Probably Baron Karl Kuffner de Dioszegh, Castle Dioszegh, Dioszegh, Czechoslovakia; his son Baron Raoul Kuffner de Dioszegh (died 1961) and the Baroness Dioszegh (Tamara de Lempicka, died 1980), presumably removed from Castle Dioszegh between 1930 and 1938 when it was among a group of objects placed at Christie’s, London, from June/July 1938 to May 1939 and marked with the number 804GS, still visible on the back of the panel [acc. to prefatory note in Parke-Bernet November 18, 1948, auction catalogue and electronic correspondence of Marijke Booth of Christie’s, London, November 23, 2004]. Paul Drey, New York, by 1945; sold by him through Maynard Walker, New York, to the Art Institute, 1945.