# Studies of the Hands of Erasmus of Rotterdam [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Silverpoint, ruddle, and black chalks on white coated paper, 206 x 153 mm ## Commentary Studies of the Hands of Erasmus of Rotterdam c. 1523 Silverpoint, ruddle, and black chalks on white coated paper, 206 x 153 mm Musée du Louvre, Paris Holbein's only known drawing of hand studies was executed as preparation for the Erasmus portraits. The artist shows the left hand in two slightly differing views, though the one at the top of the sheet was not completed, possibly because it was rejected. The lower one, worked out in great detail in silverpoint, supplied the model for corresponding hand of the Erasmus portrait in the Radnor Collectio. The right hand, which is shown holding a pen, is only quickly sketched in black chalk. It is clearly the writing hand of the Paris and Basel versions, though the viewpoint was changed in the paintings. ## Related artworks - [Adam and Eve]() - [Apollo and the Muses on Parnassus]() - [Charitas]() - [Charles Brandon]() - [Christ as the True Light]() - [Christina of Denmark, Ducchess of Milan \(detail\)]() - [Christina of Denmark, Ducchess of Milan]() - [Courtier of Henry VIII and his Wife]() - [Darmstadt Madonna \(detail\)]() - [Darmstadt Madonna \(detail\)]() - [Darmstadt Madonna \(detail\)]() - [Darmstadt Madonna \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()