Betende Hände, in English Praying hands (also known as Studie zu den Händen eines Apostels in German, engl. Hands of the Apostle), is a famous Pen-and-ink

Ink

Ink is a liquid or paste that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill...

 drawing

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

 by the German printmaker, painter and theorist Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

 made circa 1508. The artwork is stored at Albertina

Albertina, Vienna

The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well as more modern graphic works, photographs and architectural drawings...

 museum — Graphische Sammlung in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria. Dürer used white heightening technique and black ink on (self-made) blue colored paper. The drawing shows two male hands palm to palm praying

Prayer

Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...

, the body to the right (not seen). Also, the partly upfolded sleeves of the prayer are seen.

The drawing is a sketch

Sketch (drawing)

A sketch is a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not usually intended as a finished work...

 (study) for an apostles

Apostle (Christian)

The term apostle is derived from Classical Greek ἀπόστολος , meaning one who is sent away, from στέλλω + από . The literal meaning in English is therefore an "emissary", from the Latin mitto + ex...

' hand who was planned to be in the center panel of the triptych for the Heller altar. On the same paper, a sketch of the apostles' head but the sheet has been divided from it. Overall, Dürer made 18 scetches for the altarpiece

Altarpiece

An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...

.

Dürer painted the Heller altarpiece, a triptych

Triptych

A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...

, between 1507 and 1509 together with Matthias Grünewald

Matthias Grünewald

Matthias Grünewald or "Mathis" , "Gothart" or "Neithardt" , , was a German Renaissance painter of religious works, who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the expressive and intense style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century.Only ten paintings—several consisting...

. The artwork was named after Jakob Heller who ordered it. Dürer painted the interior, Grünewald the exterior. The hand sketch is realized on the triptych in the inside center panel on the right in similarity, although in smaller size.^{see image below} The painting was destroyed by a fire in 1729. The famous Dürer copyist

Copyist

A copyist is a person who makes written copies. In ancient times, a scrivener was also called a calligraphus . The term's modern use is almost entirely confined to music copyists, who are employed by the music industry to produce neat copies from a composer or arranger's manuscript.-Music...

 Jobst Harrich painted a duplicate in the 17th century. The central panel is also called große Taffel von unser lieben Frauen Himmelfahrt mit den zwölf Aposteln.
The first public recognition of the artwork was in 1871 when it was exhibited in Vienna.

The image depicts probably the master's own hands.