In this painting, Aelbert Cuyp depicts the apostle Philip’s encounter with a eunuch, an event recounted in the New Testament, Acts 8:26–40 (King James Bible). In the story, an angel guides Philip toward the carriage of “a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure” (Acts 8:26). Philip finds the official returning from a visit to Jerusalem and reading from the Old Testament. He is struggling to understand a prophecy from Isaiah: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter….” (Acts 8:32). Philip takes the opportunity to evangelize and explains the passage as foreshadowing of Christ’s suffering and death. The eunuch is so moved by Philip’s words that when they arrive at a source of water, he asks to be baptized.
Cuyp captures the moment of the baptism. The convert’s sumptuous ivory-and-gold robes emphasize his foreignness as he kneels at the stream’s edge, while Philip draws water for the ritual. The eunuch’s attendants, also dressed ornately, observe the scene from the ridge behind. The buildings of Jerusalem can be seen in the background atop a distant hill. The story of the African official converting to Christianity was understood to represent the religion’s global ambition. By the 16th century, the passage had taken on a second significance. Protestant theologians began to assert that faith and understanding of Christ’s message must precede baptism, an idea clearly expressed in the meeting of Philip and the eunuch. For 17th-century Dutch Protestants like Cuyp and his audience, this subject illustrated the ideal of a proper baptism.