Witches going to their Sabbath

Luis Ricardo Falero trained for the navy and then for science, studying chemistry and astronomy in Paris before giving it up for painting. He made this swarm of naked witches rising toward their midnight gathering in 1878, when Europe was deep in a craze for séances, spirit photography and the occult. A respectable salon audience could enjoy the shiver of black magic here without quite believing in it. In the crowd he sets a goat, a black cat and a bat, and in the foreground an old crone clings to one of the goat's horns while leaning on a young witch with red hair. Falero would go on to paint the real night sky, in careful star maps and studies of comets.