Praying Hands
1508 · Brush and grey ink, heightened with white, on blue-prepared paper · Albertina, Vienna
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About this work
- Artist
- Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)
- Year
- 1508
- Medium
- Brush and grey ink, heightened with white, on blue-prepared paper
- Original size
- 29.1 × 19.7 cm
- Collection
- Albertina, Vienna
- Movement
- Northern Renaissance
Two hands are pressed together in prayer, palms touching and fingers upright, the turned-back sleeves of a robe at the wrists, drawn with brush in grey ink and heightened with white on paper Dürer prepared himself in blue. The sheet, dated 1508, belongs to the work for the Heller Altarpiece, a triptych commissioned by the Frankfurt merchant Jakob Heller, in which the hands belong to an apostle kneeling at the right of the central panel. The painted altarpiece was destroyed by fire in 1729 and is known from a copy. The drawing was long called a preparatory study; a more recent view is that its finished execution on costly blue paper makes it a careful record of the painted hands, made to keep. Dürer made about eighteen drawings for the altarpiece, and the head of the same apostle was once on a sheet joined to this one. First shown publicly in Vienna in 1871, it has since become one of the most reproduced images of prayer. It is in the Albertina in Vienna.
This full-bleed edition prints the work edge to edge from a high-resolution scan of the original, very slightly cropped (a few percent at most) to fit the sheet. The gallery edition shows the whole work, uncropped. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
Two praying hands in grey and white brushwork on a soft blue ground, calm and devotional, for a study, hallway or reading corner at 16×24 in natural wood. A white, pale blue or stone wall; it pairs with The Light of the World.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Northern Renaissance painting
- Era
- 16th century (1508)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Mood
- grand
- Rooms
- hallway or entryway, study or library, living room, dining room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. We'd hang this one at 16×24. Prints at 12×18, 16×24 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway.
Framing. Printed edge to edge: a slim black or natural wood frame right to the image, or let the canvas wrap do the framing. Also available gallery-wrapped on canvas, ready to hang with no frame.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is Praying Hands in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was Praying Hands painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
An exhibition poster
The same artwork as a gallery exhibition poster — title, artist & date typeset beneath the image on a soft ground.
A fine-art print
The same artwork as a clean fine-art print — the image shown large with a minimal caption.
