Witch trial paintings have a prominent place in art history, reflecting the cultural and historical context of the time. These paintings depict the phenomenon of witchcraft trials that took place during the early modern period, particularly in Europe. The witch trials were a dark chapter in history, where women accused of practicing witchcraft were persecuted and executed. The witch trial paintings capture the atmosphere and events of these trials, often showcasing the accused witches, the judges, and the spectators. These paintings aim to portray the fear, hysteria, and injustice that surrounded the trials. They also delve into the religious and social beliefs that fueled the witch-hunt, such as the idea of witches forming pacts with the devil.
Examination Of A Witch, Painted By Tompkins Harrison Matteson (c. 1813–1884)
This painting was created by the American artist, Tompkins Harrison Matteson (c. 1813–1884), and is housed within the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. It is a fitting location for a painting themed on witchcraft, as colonial Salem was the location of the most famous witch trials in the history of North America. One such witchcraft trial is depicted in Matteson’s painting, and the woman with the exposed back is the suspected witch in this scene. The crowd in the courtroom looks on at a mole, birthmark, or other skin blemish on the woman’s back, which they believe is a so-called ‘Witches’ Mark.’ King James of Scotland and England, in his Daemonologie, wrote that Satan gave witches “his mark upon some secret place of their body, which remains sore [and] unhealed until his next meeting with them, and thereafter [the mark is] ever insensible, howsoever it be nipped or pricked in any way, as is daily proved” (Daemonologie, Book 2, chapter 2). With this in mind, Inquisitors would poke and prod at these skin blemishes, and were highly suspicious of any pain tolerance or lack of sensation that they discovered.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
- The Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated by Montague Summers (Dover Publications, 1971).
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Peabody Essex Museum’s Gripping New Exhibition Shines a Spotlight on Salem Witch Trials
Drawing on rarely seen items from the sprawling collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, “The Salem Witch Trials 1692” tells the tragic, true stories behind one of New England’s most notorious events.
By Ian Aldrich
Sep 23 2020
PEM’s exhibit includes two of T.H. Matteson’s famous depictions of the crisis. In this 1855 oil painting, “The Trial of George Jacobs” we see a scene from the famous court case in which Jacobs’ own granddaughter accuses him of witchcraft.
Photo Credit : Courtesy of PEM
In mid-September 1692, Mary Esty made a final, emotional appeal for her life to be spared. The wife of a wealthy farmer in Topsfield, Massachusetts, the 58-year-old mother of 11 had weathered a harrowing spring and summer. Since the early part of the year, her community, along with others in and around the town of Salem, had been roiled by a series of witch trials that threatened the very core of the Massachusetts colony. Families and friendships had been ripped apart in a crisis that eventually involved more than 400 people and led to the deaths of 25 innocent men, women, and children.
Part of “The Salem Witch Trials 1692,” a riveting new exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum, the 1855 oil painting Trial of George Jacobs, Sr., for Witchcraft depicts the defendant’s own granddaughter accusing him.
Photo Credit : Courtesy of PEM
Esty and her family were at the center of the madness. One of her older sisters, Rebecca Nurse, had already been tried and convicted for witchcraft; she was hanged in July of 1692. A younger sister was also charged with the crime, and even Esty’s mother was under suspicion. Esty herself had submitted to arrest in April and was sentenced to death in early September.
In a carefully worded petition she filed only a week before her execution, Esty pleaded with newly appointed Governor William Phips, the court, and the clergy to reconsider not just her conviction but also the trials themselves. “I petition to your honors, not for my own life, for I know I must die,” she wrote. “And my appointed time is set. But the Lord, he knows it is, that if it be possible, no more innocent blood may be shed.”
They also delve into the religious and social beliefs that fueled the witch-hunt, such as the idea of witches forming pacts with the devil. One of the most famous witch trial paintings is "The Witches' Sabbath" by Francisco Goya, created in 1797-1798. This painting depicts a group of witches gathered in a desolate landscape, engaging in dark rituals.
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That powerful document, along with a host of other rare papers and relics associated with this period in colonial Massachusetts, is now on display at the Peabody Essex Museum as part of its newest exhibit, “The Salem Witch Trials 1692,” which runs through April 4, 2021. The exhibit showcases a curated selection of PEM’s collection of witch trial materials, which is the largest such collection in the world but has rarely been on public view.
Included in the exhibit is the execution warrant for Bridget Bishop, the first of 19 people to be hanged in the Salem trials; invoices from the jailer; and direct testimony from accusers. Adding context to such documents are rare books such as Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th-century guide to finding and executing witches that was recently acquired by PEM’s Phillips Library.
Among the documents featured in the new exhibit is this jailer’s invoice from 1692, discovered decades later in an old closet in the former prison building.
Photo Credit : Courtesy of PEM
This is not an exhibit that merely displays what PEM has in its collection, however. Instead, it’s a tightly constructed and personal journey into the witch trials and the lives of those who survived them, presented in five thematic, roughly chronological sections: “Witchcraft from Europe,” “Salem and Early New England,” “Intolerance and Suspicion,” “Reflection and Impact,” and “Reckoning and Reflection.”
Along with the documents, visitors will see personal possessions of those involved in the trials, such as a trunk that belonged to a judge named Jonathan Corwin, who resided at the 17th-century house in Salem that is today known as the Witch House. There are also two original beams from the Salem jail and an 1855 painting from PEM’s collection, Tompkins Harrison Matteson’s Trial of George Jacobs, Sr. for Witchcraft, that details the pandemonium in the courtroom as the drama unfolds, as George Jacob Sr.’s own granddaughter points an accusing finger.
“My hope is that visitors will encounter these original witch trial documents and objects and recognize that there were real people that are at the heart of this historical drama,” says Dan Lipcan, head librarian at PEM’s Phillips Library. Along with Lipcan, the exhibition’s curatorial team includes Dean Lahikainen, the Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of American Decorative Art; Paula Richter, curator for exhibitions and research; and Hilary Streifer, assistant manuscript librarian at Phillips Library. “The victims of the Salem witch trials had complex emotions, fears, and doubts just like we do,” Lipcan adds. “To empathize and understand their experience emboldens us to speak out against injustice and cruelty in our own time.”
This valuables cabinet belonged to a wealthy Quaker couple, Joseph and Bathsheba Pope, who were among the accusers of their innocent fellow citizens of witchcraft, including Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor.
Photo Credit : Courtesy of PEM
The context for the witch trials begins with what came before. Witchcraft hysteria had gripped much Europe since the 15th century. During the great age of witch hunts, from 1400 to 1775, religious upheaval and warfare, political tensions, and economic dislocation led to waves of persecutions and scapegoating in Europe and its colonies. In all, roughly 100,000 people were tried for witchcraft and some 50,000 were executed.
“The Salem Witch Trials 1692” carefully walks PEM visitors through this early history while also detailing the challenges that the colonists faced — from extreme weather to the threat of constant war to a series of crop failures — that fueled a sense that allies of the devil lived among them.
“There was really this perfect storm of events that made people feel unsafe,” says Emerson W. “Tad” Baker, vice provost and history professor at Salem State University, who consulted on the exhibit along with Richard Trask of the Danvers Archival Center, at the Peabody Institute Library of Danvers, and Kerry Anne Morgan, director of gallery and exhibition programs at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. “If you don’t feel safe and you don’t feel secure, then you start looking at people to blame your problems on. That is when the scapegoating begins.”
Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.Photo Credit : Peabody Essex Museum
“The Salem Witch Trials 1692” marks the first time in nearly three decades that artifacts from PEM’s vast witch trials collection have been put on display. The exhibit was born from an initiative of PEM’s director and CEO, Brian Kennedy, to give greater Salem a stronger presence at the museum — something that’s also reflected in the companion exhibit “Salem Stories.” Open now and continuing through October 3, 2021, “Salem Stories” uses more than 100 works, including paintings, sculpture and textiles, to bring Salem’s history to life, from past to present day.
Artist in the United States, witch weathervane, about 1900. Iron and paint. Museum purchase, 1985. 136517. © Peabody Essex Museum.
Photo Credit : Kathy Tarantola/PEM
Taken together, the two exhibits show how far the city has come in telling its story authentically. It wasn’t until 1703 that Massachusetts begin issuing pardons for victims of the witch trials, a process that wasn’t completed until 2001. Shame over the trials became so ingrained that it took 300 years before a memorial to the victims was constructed — which is why the most moving part of “The Salem Witch Trials 1692” comes at the end, where a wall reminiscent of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington lists the names of the victims by the date they died. It’s final, somber reminder of the human toll of this event.
“In 1692 we made the mistake of prejudging people and rushing to judgement,” says Baker, author of the 2015 book A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Witch Trials and the American Experience. “Today, I think the city really prides itself on welcoming everybody because of what happened. So I hope when people come to Salem and take in the wonderful history, the PEM, the culture, and the architecture, they’ll be able to have a more serious reflection on what this period all means.”
The Peabody Essex Museum is located at East India Square, 161 Essex St., Salem, MA. It is currently open from 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. Reserve tickets in advance atpem.org/ticketsor by calling 978-542-1511. For details on PEM’s safety protocols, go to pem.org/safety. To listen to a riveting podcast episode about the Salem Witch Trials, got to pem.org/pemcast
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Goya's artwork incorporates elements of fantasy and horror, reflecting the fascination with the supernatural during that period. The painting also criticizes the religious and judicial institutions that allowed the witch trials to take place. Another notable example is "The Witch of Endor" by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, painted in the early 16th century. This painting portrays the biblical story of the witch who was summoned by King Saul to contact the deceased prophet Samuel. The story serves as a cautionary tale against engaging with witchcraft and the consequences it may bring. Witch trial paintings often have a moral or social message, reminding viewers of the dangers of prejudice, superstition, and mass hysteria. These artworks serve as a visual record of the witch-hunt phenomenon, highlighting the tragic consequences of unfounded beliefs and persecutions. In conclusion, witch trial paintings play a significant role in examining and understanding the cultural and historical context of the early modern period. These artworks shed light on the fear and paranoia that fueled the witch trials and aim to provoke contemplation about the dangers of unchecked superstition and persecution. Witch trial paintings thus serve as powerful reminders of the need for justice, tolerance, and critical thinking in society..
Reviews for "The Role of Women in Witch Trial Paintings: Victims or Villains?"
1. Sarah - 2 stars - I found the "Witch trial painting" to be extremely disturbing and offensive. The artist seemed to glorify the horrifying events of the witch trials instead of shedding light on the injustice and cruelty that took place. The graphic depiction of women being persecuted and tortured was not only unnecessary but also highly disrespectful to the victims. I believe art should be used to educate and inspire, but this painting missed the mark completely.
2. John - 1 star - I was deeply disappointed with the "Witch trial painting". It lacked depth and failed to convey any emotion or meaning. The composition felt cluttered and chaotic, making it difficult to understand the artist's intention. Additionally, the color palette was mundane and unappealing. Overall, I found the painting to be unimpressive and forgettable.
3. Emily - 2 stars - The "Witch trial painting" left me feeling uneasy and disturbed. It seemed to revel in the violence and brutality of the witch trials, rather than exploring the historical and social context behind them. The artist's choice to focus solely on the gory aspects of the trials without providing any nuance or commentary made the painting feel gratuitous and exploitative. I believe there are more thoughtful and empathetic ways to approach this dark period in history through art.
4. David - 1 star - I found the "Witch trial painting" to be overly sensationalized and sensationalistic. It seemed to rely on shock value rather than offering any meaningful insight into the witch trials. The grotesque portrayal of the victims felt exploitative and disrespectful. I was hoping for a more thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of this historical event, but I was left disappointed by the shallowness of the painting.
5. Rachel - 2 stars - The "Witch trial painting" failed to capture the complexity and tragedy of the witch trials. It seemed more focused on creating a dark and macabre atmosphere than on exploring the social, cultural, and psychological factors that led to such mass hysteria. The painting lacked subtlety and nuance, relying instead on shock value to grab the viewer's attention. I was hoping to gain a deeper understanding of this dark chapter in history, but unfortunately, the painting fell short for me.