Gathering of Witches

Francken's atmospheric witches' sabbath is a highly imaginative depiction of a subject he returned to repeatedly well into the second decade of the seventeenth century, and which proved very popular with collectors. Here, the artist clearly sought inspiration from the writings of, among others, Hildegard von Bingen and Paracelsus, though he interprets them freely and adds numerous highly-detailed demons and mythical creatures derived from the works of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The composition also reflects misogynist ideas and male fears frequently thematized in writings of that period.