Jan van de Velde II

This “black” print reflects the market for prints with dramatic, flickering illuminations similar to effects in paintings of the period. Where some of Jan van de Velde’s contemporaries may have utilized etching and engraving together with plate tone to achieve darker tonalities, Van de Velde used engraving alone. His effects are achieved by approaching the plate systematically, using few dots, and densely layering fine and exceptionally long lines in parallel and crossed courses. This extremely laborious process was hard won and rarely attempted by others.

This sinister scene depicts a young, nubile witch in classical garb preparing a nasty brew for her Sabbath, surrounded by her “familiars,” beasts of every conceivable concoction, including a goat, the traditional symbol of lust. Some of the symbols—such as the cards, die, and tobacco in the foreground—would be more common to a vanitas image, serving to warn that life is fleeting and that temporal pleasures should be avoided. The verses further attest to this mixed meaning by condemning the evil effects of lust on the minds of mortals and the triumph of death over all humankind.