the clasped hands modelled in low-relief,

This model has been made exclusively for LASSCO by a master prop-maker from the film industry. They are carefully realised in three dimensions from  “Praying Hands”, (or “Betende Hände ” also known as: “Studie zu den Händen eines Apostels” (“Study of the Hands of an Apostle”)) a pen-and-ink drawing by the German printmaker, painter and theorist Albrecht Dürer, executed circa 1508.

The original is stored at Albertina museum in Vienna. Dürer used white heightening technique and black ink on (self-made) blue coloured paper.  The drawing is a sketch for an apostles’ hands, planned to be in the center panel of the triptych for the Heller altar, which was destroyed by a fire in 1729.  The first public recognition of the sketch was in 1871 when it was exhibited in Vienna. It is thought the image depicts the master’s own hands.