An Iconographic Reinterpretation of Crépy's Witches' Sabbath

Abstract: The role of images in the construction and circulation of belief concerning magic and witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries has been the focus of a number of studies. But what was their role from the 18th century onwards, when the elites' criticism of that belief became ever stronger? The article starts from an iconographic reinterpretation of Crepy's famous engraving The Witches' Sabbath (1710). Far from being the first figurative parody of the witches' nocturnal gathering, as Chares Zika has argued, it is actually an image that makes use of a different communicative technique to counter superstition. The results are however ambiguous and show all the limitations of images for this purpose. It is no coincidence that the elites entrusted the controversy to the printed word and not to illustrations: although the latter were easier for the illiterate to understand, the risk of misunderstanding was too great.