Throughout his life, Menzel paid particular attention to the study of hands, particularly those that were old and wrinkled. Famous depictions of his own hand with a palette or book, as well as the study of his right hand “painted with his left,” reveal however that this was not a matter of aesthetics for the compulsive draughtsman, but rather of analysing the traces of life left amongst wrinkles and veins. A highly comparable left hand holding a book, likely also the prayer book of a female churchgoer, can be found in a sketch from 1895 (Fig. 1).