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The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches

1796
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 641
Hecate, the Greek goddess who presided over witchcraft and magical rites, was historically known as the “Night-Hag,” hence the title that the artist gave this work. It illustrates a passage from Paradise Lost by the English poet John Milton, in which hellhounds are compared to those who “follow the night-hag when, called, / In secret, riding through the air she comes, Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance / With Lapland witches, while the laboring moon Eclipses at their charms.” Fuseli and Goya did not know each other, but they both captured the psychological impact of the turmoil and war experienced by many during the age of revolution and Napoleonic expansion.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches
  • Artist: Henry Fuseli (Swiss, Zürich 1741–1825 London)
  • Date: 1796
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 40 x 49 3/4 in. (101.6 x 126.4 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Bequest of Lillian S. Timken, by exchange, and Victor Wilbour Memorial, The Alfred N. Punnett Endowment, Marquand and Charles B. Curtis Funds, 1980
  • Object Number: 1980.411
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Falstaff with Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page (Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 5, Scene 5), Henry Fuseli Swiss, Pen and brown ink over faint graphite
Falstaff with Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page (Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 5, Scene 5)
Henry Fuseli
William Shakespeare
1790
Hagen and the Nymphs of the Danube, Henry Fuseli Swiss, Graphite, pen and brown ink, watercolor and gouache on cream wove paper
Hagen and the Nymphs of the Danube
Henry Fuseli
1802
Lectures on Painting, Delivered at the Royal Academy, March 1801
Multiple artists/makers
1801
The Witch and the Mandrake (Ben Jonson, "Witch's Song," Masque of Queens)
Henry Fuseli
1812
Heavenly Ganymede (Homer, Iliad, XX, 234)
Henry Fuseli
Georg Jacob Vollweiler
1804–7

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