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The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches, 1796. This canvas, first exhibited is 1799, wa sold by the artist in 1808 to his biographers, John Knowles. it illustrates a passage from "Paradise Lost", II (622-666) in which the hellhounds surrounding Sin 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 Laplan witches, while the laboring moon Eclipses at their charms." "Night-hag" is an epitet of the Greek goddess Hecate, who presided over withcraft and magical rites.
20091017 New York Metropolitan Museum Of Art
