Manos. Siete (3, 1, 2, 1), la primera empuna un palo [Seven Hands, the First Holding a Staff], plate 49 from the Principios para estudiar el nobilismo y real Arte de la Pintura [Principles for Studying the Most Noble and High Art of Painting]

This study of hands belongs to a series that was intended as a primer for painters. Such manuals first appeared in early seventeenth-century Italy and soon became a standard accessory in European academies and studios. Hidalgo, a painter who had studied in Rome with the leading academic painter Carlo Maratta, was the first Spanish artist to undertake such a project. His series, however, was never published, and there exist only a few impressions of each plate.