- Gallery: Room 90
- Maker: Hans Baldung
- Date: 1510
- Object type: print
- Materials: paper
- Museum number: 1834,0712.73
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
This is The Witches' Sabbath by Hans Baldung, created in 1510. Before you is a striking colour woodcut made from two blocks, using orange-brown tones. The print shows a group of witches gathered around a central tree, set against a dark, dramatic background. Look closely, and you can see the artist's signature “HBG” on a tablet near the tree on the right.
This artwork is likely Baldung’s most famous print and showcases his bold approach to both expression and technique. At the time, colour woodcut was an emerging method, developed a few years earlier in Germany. Baldung’s version reflects a fascination with nightmarish scenes featuring women, a theme that appears often in his work.
Witchcraft imagery was common in the early 1500s, a period filled with moral and religious anxiety. Baldung's image feels deeply personal, marked by an intense focus on human emotion and the mysterious power of women. This piece was printed in Strasbourg, a city where witchcraft was already widely discussed in literature and society.
See it in person
Print is on display in Room 90 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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