Francisco Goya's Witches’ Sabbath (not to be confused with the piece done over two decades later called Witches’ Sabbath (The Great He-Goat)), is one of six works with a focus on the supernatural Goya painted for the Duchess of Osuna.

Francisco Goya didn’t believe in the supernatural, but he often drew from it to reshape and reveal the true evils that haunted him - evils that stemmed from humans devoid of mystical influence, the only sort of being Goya ever claimed to fear.

Goya was somewhat close with the Duchess and her family before this commission, which was of rather eclectic taste at the time. The Duke and Duchess of Osuna were patrons of Goya for over thirty years. Well before they wanted to request dark, witchy scenes to decorate their country house Palacio de Alameda, Goya painted a rather sweet family portrait of them with all their children, among other works. 

As for why witches, Goya, through his supernatural subjects, showcased satire about the superstitious society around him. In this instance, he was likely satirizing the Spanish Inquisition, which wouldn’t be abolished for another decade, and criticizing the Church for encouraging superstition. More specifically, Goya was commenting on the lingering belief in witchcraft that led to thousands of lives lost in witch hunts two centuries prior.

Around the time of this commission, Goya also created eighty prints called Los Caprichos which also featured depictions of witchcraft, created toward the same purpose. One title is particularly apt: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. Goya wanted the awful history to stay in the past.

As for the start of this specific piece and the five others in the commission, a court document from the Basque County witch trials of 1609-11 called Auto de Fe de la Ciudad de Logroño inspired, and likely enraged Goya. Though it didn’t get an official second publication until 1812, and this piece was created in 1798, the parallels between his paintings and the imagery described are rather telling. Since Goya was friends with the author, he probably got an early read. 

The events and satanic rituals described in the document were said to have happened in a place called El Aquelarre, the Spanish title of this piece, which translates to “the coven.” I imagine there were aristocrats in high society who read all the vivid details with a gruesome fascination, like people nowadays watching the Saw sequels. Goya appropriated these images as a way of rejecting them and challenging superstitious beliefs and the hatred and prejudice said thinking could brew. 

What makes the court document so appalling is that the summation of accusations actually does read as graphic as a Saw sequel, while the whole of it is written with no awareness of the true tragedy. Auto de fe, the name the Inquisition gave the trials, translates to “act of faith” and when the accused are taken to the authorities they refer to it as being “relaxed.” It’s not hard to see why Goya was compelled to use it as a source for his satire. 

To spare you from specifics, this piece and the five others, including Witches’ Flight, give you a restyled, and more palatable idea of the trials, with Saturn Devouring One of His Sons also thrown in as a final interpretation - a pretty horrific one, at that.