Witches' Sabbath (1510). Woodcut. 38 x 26. The Witches is a chiaroscuro woodcut by German Renaissance artist Hans Baldung. This woodcut depicts witches preparing to travel to a Witches' Sabbath by using flying ointment. This is the first woodcut produced by Baldung after leaving the studio of his mentor, Albrecht Dürer, and one of the first Renaissance images to depict both witches that fly and a Witches' Sabbath. Surrounded by human bones and animal familiars, a group of witches engage in naked revelry as they soar through the air and prepare food for the Sabbath. The image also contains references to a blasphemy of mass and the witches' libidinous nature. This print was created in the city of Strasbourg, where Hans Baldung was working. This is the first print made by Baldung after becoming a master craftsman and leaving Dürer's workshop, as well as the first to feature his initials. These initials can be seen hanging on a tree limb to the center-right edge of the print. The chiaroscuro woodcut was a printmaking technique where a color woodblock was used to add tone to the printed image. It was invented earlier in 1508 and had already seen success in the prints of Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Burgkmair. This new technology allowed for Baldung's scene to be set at night. This print was made from two woodblocks, one key block for black lines and a color block. There are two versions of The Witches, one printed with an orange tone-block and another with a gray-tone block. Baldung and his mentor Albrecht Dürer created several images throughout their careers that dealt with this theme of witches. Notable works include Dürer's The Four Witches and Witch Riding Backwards On A Goat, as well as Baldung's New Year's Greeting with Three Witches and The Bewitched Groom. It is unknown if the 1506 drawing Hexensabbat by Albrecht Altdorfer influenced Baldung's print. A Witches' Sabbath was an event where witches would assemble to worship the devil. This image is an inversion of the Christian Mass. Rather than receive the body and blood of Christ, participants instead offered up human flesh to Satan. The Sabbath contains elements of bestiality and adultery. The devil, in the form of an animal or a human, would copulate with all of the witches at the Sabbath. It was also thought that the witches would perform these sexual acts in front of their children. The children would also be given to the devil, presumably as a sacrifice. Several of Baldung's other works that involve witches or witch-like figures do feature children. It is important to note that the witches in Baldung's image are not actually at a Sabbath. The witches here are preparing a flying potion that will allow them to travel to the Sabbath, a larger gathering of witches. There is a lack of feasting and dancing as a group, essential elements of a Sabbath. The pot containing a flying potion and uneaten food also suggest they are carrying food to a larger gathering. At the time of the image's creation in 1510, the Sabbath was largely considered a fictional idea and not widely considered to be a legitimate threat. Most peasants did not know about it, and even among theologians and witch hunters, the Sabbath did not necessarily play a large role in demonology. Although the Sabbath was first mentioned in the Malleus maleficarum and would later become an essential component of many witch trials, in Strasbourg at this time the legitimacy of the Sabbath's existence was in dispute. In this image by Baldung, the witches are using an unguent contained in a jar that will be used for flight. Early witch hunters did not believe it possible for witches to fly or levitate. The idea of witches' flight, sometimes referred to as transvection, was officially denounced by the Canon Episcopi, a resource for canon law in the medieval ages that explicitly stated how Satan and witchcraft functioned. Witches' flight was also dismissed as fantasy by Alphonso de Spina in Fortalicium Fidei, Gianfrancesco Ponzinibio in Tractatus de Lamiis, Jean Bodin in De la demonomanie de les sorciers, and in the speeches of preacher Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg. Although originally considered an impossibility, witches' flight was essential to making the Witches' Sabbath and the subsequent witch hunts possible. Sabbaths were generally thought to take place far away from where witches lived. Therefore, in order to attend a Sabbath, witches needed to be able to cross large distances in a short amount of time. Witch hunters needed a way to circumvent the Cannon Episcopi and popularize the idea of witches' flight as feasible in order to better prosecute and convict people of being witches.