Apostel Filippus door een engel weggevoerd 1697

This engraving of the Apostle Philip being carried away by an angel, is one of many produced in the Netherlands, though its exact date and creator are unknown. The image shows a biblical scene, the angel is abducting the Apostle after baptizing an Ethiopian eunuch. Prints like this were often produced in series, illustrating stories from the Bible or lives of the saints. These would then be distributed as devotional aids for private contemplation, or as didactic illustrations to teach the scriptures. We can research who was commissioning and collecting these kinds of prints, and trace the workshops that produced them. We might then start to understand their role in shaping religious sentiment and practice in the Netherlands. The Rijksmuseum possesses a huge collection of such prints, which can be cross-referenced with other collections and textual sources to illuminate the social life of images. Through this, we can start to see art not just as aesthetic objects, but as powerful agents in shaping beliefs and behaviors.