Studies of Hands

c. 1580

Brush and black ink, heightened with white on blue prepared paper

238 × 251 mm

Praun-, Esterházy collection

The model for the praying hands on the left was Dürer’s famous study for the mid-section of his painting titled Heller Altarpiece, which was destroyed by fire in 1729. Dürer’s drawing is now held at the Albertina, Vienna. On Hoffmann’s sheet, the pair of hands on the right is a copy of a lost drawing by Dürer, which he made in preparation for the hand of the pope in the picture titled Feast of the Rose Garlands, a work that Dürer painted in Venice in 1506 and is now preserved in Prague. Hoffmann’s drawing, in which the shade of the blue ground differs considerably from that of Dürer’s original, is a good example of the manner in which the artist produced new compositions – presumably for sale or as gifts – based on Dürer’s studies. The piece, together with fifty other works by Hoffmann, came to the Museum of Fine Arts from the Praun collection.