Artwork
Scenes of Witchcraft: Evening
Scenes of Witchcraft: Evening is an oil painting by the Early Baroque Italian artist Salvator Rosa. It dates from 1640 and is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
About this work
Technique & Style
The work's condition remains stable, with original canvas weave and pigment strata intact, though localized craquelure suggests historical handling stresses.
The painting is executed in oil on canvas, reflecting 17th-century Italian practice of applying pigment directly to stretched linen support. Contemporary records indicate Rosa employed layered glazes to achieve atmospheric depth, a technique observable in the delicate rendering of twilight effects and shadowed figures. The work's condition remains stable, with original canvas weave and pigment strata intact, though localized craquelure suggests historical handling stresses.
Formal analysis notes the composition's dramatic chiaroscuro and dynamic figure arrangements, characteristic of Rosa's unorthodox approach to narrative painting, diverging from academic conventions of his era.
History & Provenance
Salvator Rosa painted Scenes of Witchcraft: Evening in 1640, as recorded in the work’s medium classification and dating.
The painting entered the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, where it is held as accession number 1977.37.3. Its provenance prior to the museum’s acquisition is not specified in the cited sources.
Overview
Created in 1640, Scenes of Witchcraft: Evening is an oil painting by the Italian Baroque artist Salvador Rosa. Executed during his productive years in Naples, Rome and Florence, the work exemplifies Rosa’s penchant for dramatic, nocturnal landscapes and is now held by the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Subject & Meaning
The composition presents a moonlit clearing where three figures engage in a ritual. A kneeling figure tends a fire and stirs a pot while consulting a book marked with obscure symbols; a robed companion stands nearby holding a staff, and a third, illuminated by a lantern, points toward a skeletal form suspended from a tree. The scene evokes themes of occult practice and the unsettling atmosphere of night.
Context
Scenes of Witchcraft: Evening belongs to the early Italian Baroque, a period marked by heightened emotional expression and dramatic lighting. Rosa’s interest in wild, untamed landscapes and supernatural subjects set him apart from many contemporaries, aligning his work with the era’s fascination with the sublime and the occult.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Salvator Rosa (1615 – 15 March 1673) is best known today as an Italian Baroque painter, whose romanticised landscapes and history paintings, often set in dark and untamed nature, exerted considerable influence from the 17th century into…
Scenes of Witchcraft: Evening
Scenes of Witchcraft: Morning
Versuchung des Hl. Antonius
The Witches' Sabbath
Orpheus and Eurydice in the Underworld
Scenes of Witchcraft: Night
Die “Dulle Griet” unternimmt einen Raubzug vor der Hölle
Scenes of Witchcraft: Day
Satan, Sin and Death (A Scene from Milton's `Paradise Lost')