The incantation

The Incantation belongs to a series of six small cabinet paintings that Goya made with witchcraft as their central theme. It is an oil on canvas of modest size, conceived for an intimate interior rather than a large reception room. According to the sources, the six pictures do not form a continuous story nor share a single meaning, so each scene is best read on its own.

The series decorated the summer residence of the Dukes of Osuna at La Alameda, an estate of gardens and a palace that the couple had turned into a pleasure ground at the end of the eighteenth century. The dukes were Goya's patrons and leading figures of the Spanish Enlightenment: they hosted gatherings, built a notable library and supported scientists and artists. An invoice dated June 1798 refers to the six witch-themed works, although there is no evidence that the duchess directly commissioned the subjects, and Goya may well have presented paintings that suited his patrons' tastes.

The Incantation shows a group of aged witches performing a night-time spell under a crescent moon, while the last light of day lingers on the horizon, where a village can be made out. The figures are unsettling: some have skull-like faces and sly grins, and several wear black like priestesses. The scene mixes the sinister with a certain irony, a quality critics often link to the social satire of the period.

Witches were a popular motif in Spanish folklore, present in theatre and literature. Although enlightened nobles did not believe in them, they were fascinated by magic and the supernatural, and Goya, who described himself as a sceptic, filled his work with fantastical figures. The most likely dating places the paintings between 1797 and 1798, in parallel with Los Caprichos, with which they share themes and a critical spirit. Today it is held by the Museo Lázaro Galdiano in Madrid, a testimony to the more unsettling and free side of the painter.

Painter

Francisco Goya

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

45 × 32 cm

Museum

Lázaro Galdiano Museum, Madrid

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