Art Institute of ChicagoPublic domain

A Witches' Sabbath

Cornelis Saftleven · c. 1650

Provenance

Ownership history

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.

Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

New York, American British Art Center, Other Worlds, October 1945, cat. 30, traveled to Andover, Mass., Addison Gallery, Phillips Academy, November 1945.

Literature

Maynard Walker, Maynard Walker Gallery (New York, 1946), p. 15 (ill.).
Mary C. Rathbun, "Other Worlds in an Art Gallery: An Exhibition at the Addison Gallery, Phillips Academy, Andover," Art in America 34 (Jan. 1946), pp. 35–38 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 409.
Wolfgang Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven, 1607–1681: Leben und Werke mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 14 (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1978), pp. 13, 188, cat. 516, ill. 20.
Peter C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America (Grand Rapids, 1986), p. 49.
Jane P. Davidson, The Witch in Northern European Art 1470–1750 (Freren: Luca Verlage, 1987), 67, 144, ill. 31.
MS Lucas, “Het heksengeloof verbeeld, 17de eeuwse voorstellingen in de Nederlanden,” Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1996), 132–133, fig. 17.
Tania de Nile, Fantasmagorie: Streghe, demoni e tentazioni nell'arte fiamminga e olandese del Seicento (Rome, 2023), pp. 231–33, fig. 275.

Comparables