Sculptures of hands for drawing

This website is mostly concerned with Victorian and Edwardian sculpture, and here is a page of pictures of hands from various statues, for those interested in drawing and sketching. Sculptured hands are good to practice sketching from, to get the basic shapes, because the sculptors tend to emphasise the masses and the bone and muscular structure, and also to ignore the surface variations of ligament and vein and wrinkle which can be distracting detail.

In these photos, I have chosen a variety of hand poses, including relaxed hands, gestures, the act of gripping or gently holding, and some are in soft focus to concentrate on the effect of shadow rather than detail. I have converted them all to black and white, again to avoid distraction for the sketch-maker. Some are stone, which is more natural in the fall of light, and some are from bronze statues, which gives a stronger contrast between light and shade, and may include unusual reflections.

Most of the hands are female, a few male, and I have chosen some bare arms and some with drapery of various types. As ever, click on the thumbnail pictures to get the larger pictures.

While anyone finding this page and being interested in it may not be particularly interested in sculptures per se, I would invite you to look at some of the pictures of Victorian and Edwardian sculptures scattered elsewhere on these pages - many with artistic inclinations start from looking at illustrations and paintings, and come late to an appreciation of sculpture. Have a look, for example, at the pages on angels, keystones, spandrels and warrior women, or the Allegorical Figures representative of Sculpture and browse through the alphabet forward or backward from the bottom of each page.