The Witch of Endor conjures up the specter of Samuel in front of King Saul is an old master artwork realized by a follower of Georg Andreas Wolfgang I between 18th and 19th century.
Mixed colored oil painting on canvas.
On the back probable signature of the author traced by brush "P. So [mita] rt [...] Fac. ".
The subject of this painting, the witch of Endor, a necromancer mentioned in the Bible whose power was to evoke the spirit of the dead, is a very rare theme in painting and there are few artists who represented it. In Italy it was especially Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) who had a deep interest in necromantic subjects and, in particular, he produced many paintings of this kind when he stayed in Florence in the 1840s. Rosa's inventions were exported throughout Europe and, in particular, in the German cities of Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Augusta through the works of Johann Heinnrich Schonfeld (Stuttgart, 1627 - Habsburg, 1684), an artist who worked in Naples and who remained sensitive to figure of Salvator Rosa.
In this context, in addition to Schonfeld, the Swiss Joseph Werner II (Berne, 1637-1710) was also responsible for the diffusion of this pictorial genre, introducing Rosa's works on witchcraft among his knowledge of Augsburg. He was also the inventor of the scene represented here from whose drawing (Bern, Kunstmuseum, inv. A1196), executed in 1677, the engraving made immediately after by Georg Andreas Wolfgang the Elder (1631–1716) and by which derives precisely the work examined here. The engraving, which was part of a series of biblical images, was dedicated by Wolfgang to Leonhard Weiss, probably a municipal employee of Augsburg or tis mayor.
Reference bibliography:
- Susan Broomhall, Gender and emotions in medieval and early modern Europe...
Category
Late 18th Century Modern Figurative Paintings
