Dürer created the drawing using the technique of white heightening and black ink on (self-made) blue colored paper.

The drawing used to be considered a sketch (study) for hands of an apostle, whose full picture was planned to occupy the central panel of the triptych installed in Frankfurt entitled the Heller Altarpiece – destroyed by a fire in 1729.

Recently, a more plausible theory of the drawing is that, in its elaborate execution on precious blue paper, it is rather a virtuoso record of the hands in the painting, which Dürer could bring back with him from Italy to Nuremberg.

[2] The first public recognition of the artwork was in 1871 when it was exhibited in Vienna, and the image is said to depict the hands of Dürer's brother, one of eighteen siblings.

[3][4] The image is the most widely reproduced depiction of prayer in the Western world,[5] found on posters, coffee mugs, mobile phones,[5] and has been used as album artwork.