print
- Museum number
- 1868,0822.188
- Description
-
A witch riding backwards on a goat, with four putti carrying an alchemist's pot, a thorn apple plant. c.1500
Engraving
- Production date
- 1500 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 116 millimetres
-
Width: 72 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This engraving was made in about 1500. soon after Dürer’s engraving 'Four Witches or Four Naked Women' (dated 1497; Hollstein 69). They are Dürer’s only prints which relate directly to the contemporary obsession with witches, reflected most vividly in the popular guide to witch-hunting the ' Witches' Hammer' written by Dominican inquisitors (H. Kramer and J. Sprenger, 'Malleus maleficarum' Strasbourg,, 1487; re-printed in Nuremberg by A. Koberger in 1494 and 1496). Witchcraft was thought to reverse the natural order of things, so the hair of the witch streams out in one direction, while the goat and the trail of drapery indicate the opposite direction. The print was an obvious source of inspiration to Dürer’s pupil, Hans Baldung who vividly expressed the early sixteenth-century fascination with witches by giving them a focal position in his art for the duration of his career: his most famous woodcuts are the 'Witches' Sabbath' of 1510 (Hollstein 235 ) and the 'Bewitched Groom' of 1544-5 (Hollstein 237 ).
Lit: G.Bartrum, 'Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy', exhibition catalogue, London, BM 2002-3, no. 178
See D. Petherbridge, 'Witches and Wicked Bodies'. Exhibition catalogue Edinburgh 2013, cat No. 17
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2002-3 Dec - March, London, BM Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy
2013 Aug-Nov, Edinburgh, Scottish NG, Witches and Wicked Bodies
2014-5 Sept.-Jan, London, BM, Witches and Wicked Bodies
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0822.188
