Achim Riether connected this drawing with Matthäus Merian the Elder's etched broadsheet Zauberey (Witchcraft), first published in 1626.(2) The etching was later published in Cebes Thebanus' Die Kunstreiche Tafel (Frankfurt, 1638); and again as the title page to Johannes Praetorius' Blockes-Berges Verrichtung (Leipzig and Frankfurt, 1668).(3) Merian's etching illustrates the celebration of Walpurgis night, the annual Witches Sabbath held on the highest peak, the Blocken, of the Harz Mountains in central Germany on the evening of April 30.(4) Merian's image could also be entitled The Dance on the Blocksberg, as an inscription on the print specifies the location of the large revelry. For centuries the site was the gathering place of a veritable demonic extravaganza, where Satan's subjects and witches were said to practice their black arts in the vast and mystifying landscape.
Herr's drawing is much more abstract than Merian's etching and differs in some of the details. Using broad and sweeping strokes, Herr creates a chaotic scene of humans and demons flying, mixing brews, dancing, and generally carousing. The figures are not defined beyond general shapes and characteristics, and there is much evidence of Herr's working process. Corrections and revisions are made directly to the sheet—as seen in the area around the cauldron. It does, however, represent only the earliest preliminary sketch for the print,(5) and is grouped together with two other drawings that illustrate similar subjects, also created in the mid 1620s.(6) The drawings are executed in the same style, and although compositionally different, they contain all of the same elements—the large bubbling cauldron, gallows, witches riding broomsticks, and wizards studying magic texts. Many of these insidious activities are described in the infamous Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), which was published as late as 1669.(7)
Kaufmann first published this drawing as the work of Michael Herr (1591–1661) in 1985, after a discussion with Heinrich Geissler in 1982.(8) This attribution was confirmed in the 1992 Flint catalogue on the authority of a conversation between Jeffrey Ruda and Werner Schade in 1990.
Freyda Spira, in William Breazeale, with Cara Denison, Stacey Sell, and Freyda Spira, A Pioneering Collection: Master Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 2010
Notes:
(1) Gatenbröcker 1996 as in Literature above, p. 464 note 511.
(2) This impression British Museum inv. no. 1880-7-10-388. The etching is inscribed: Michael Herr inuent: M. Merian fecit 1626.
(3) See Christoph Michel, "'Luxe de Croyance?' Goethe und die Mythen," in Mythen-Symbole-Metamorphosen in der Kunst seit 1800: Festschrift für Christa Lichtenstern zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. Helga and J. Adolf Schmoll, Regina Maria Hillert, Berlin, 2004, p. 100 note 54.
(4) Gerhild Scholz Williams, Ways of Knowing in Early Modern Germany: Johannes Praetorius as a Witness to his Time, Burlington, 2006, 86.
(5) Riether in Gatenbröker, Bidlingmaier and Riether 1991 as in Literature above, p. 38.
Inscriptions: graphite, lower right corner: n. 3 (?); verso, black chalk, lower margin, signed: Michl Herr; verso, lower right corner: Herr/ 104/ -; upside down: 5
Marks: none
Provenance: Possibly Matthäus Merian collection, or unknown Nuremberg collector.(1) Edwin Bryant Crocker, Sacramento, by 1871; gift of his widow Margaret to the Museum, 1885
Literature: William Breazeale, with Cara Denison, Stacey Sell, and Freyda Spira, A Pioneering Collection: Master Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 2010, no. 44; Thomas daCosta Kaufmann, Central European Drawings in the Collection of the Crocker Art Museum, Turnhout, 2004, pp. 47–49; Silke Gatenbröcker, Michael Herr (1591–1661): Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte Nürnbergs im 17. Jahrhundert, Münster, 1996, cat. no. Z 266, pp. 463–65; Jeffrey Ruda, The Art of Drawing, Old Masters from the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California, exh. cat. Flint, 1992, cat. no. 11; Silke Gatenbröcker, Rolf Bidlingmaier, Achim Riether, Michael Herr 1591–1661, ein Künstler zwischen Manierismus und Barock, Metzingen, 1991, pp. 38–40; Thomas daCosta Kaufmann, "A Census of Drawings from the Holy Roman Empire, 1540–1680, in North American Collections," in Central European History, vol. XVIII, no. 1, March 1985, p. 88; Christopher White, review of Master Drawings from Sacramento, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 1971, in Master Drawings, vol. X, no. 2, Summer 1972, p. 167; Master Drawings from Sacramento, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 1971, no. 54 (as Joseph Heinz [sic] the Younger)
