Cleveland Museum of Art

The Bewitched Groom

Hans Baldung

Date

1544

Medium

woodcut

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Envious witches were maligned as deceitful, sexualized women, hags who toppled righteous men in their lustful quests. Baldung's bizarre and unsettling image depicts a noble male figure lying unconscious in an open room, as a glaring mare (a symbol of unrestrained sexuality) and flailing witch peer in. The angular nose and chin and sagging, bare breasts of the malevolent hag echo the face and bony chest of Veneziano's emaciated personification of Death.

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