Witches’ Kitchen

A Witches’ Sabbath is being prepared: On the left a flyingointment is being concocted together with demons, which an old woman is applying to the back of an already naked woman on the right. Beside her two middle-class women are undressing to be next in line. In the early seventeenth century, a time when witch-hunting was legal in Europe, this subject was repeatedly depicted in Flemish art. It reflects misogynist attitudes and male fears. A word written in the magical circle on the floor in the foreground on the right: it is what these women were accused: “tuverye” (witchcraft).