Four Naked Women (The Four Witches)
1496 - 1497
Albrecht Dürer’s 1497 engraving throws us right into a mysterious, slightly spooky gathering of four nude women. While they seem to be casually chatting in a room, look closer at the floor—there's a skull right beneath their feet, and a little horned demon is sneaking in from the left, suggesting these aren't just ordinary ladies, but perhaps witches brewing up trouble. Dürer, a master of the Northern Renaissance, was obsessed with human proportions, and he used these figures to show off his incredible skill at rendering the female form from every possible angle. The hanging globe at the top marks the year, leaving art historians to debate for centuries whether this is a scene of witchcraft, a classical mythology reference, or just a very strange anatomy study.