Equatorial Guinea – Dürer’s Praying Hands 1970 Proof Silver 100 Pesetas 40mm (19.86 grams) 0.999 Silver (0.6424 oz. ASW) Reference: KM# 12 REP. DE GUINEA ECUATORIAL LEY 9999 1970 100 PESETAS GUINEANAS, Coat-of-Arms. * MANOS REZANTES * DURER, Dürer’s praying hands.
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Praying hands (German: Betende Hände), also known as Study of the Hands of an Apostle (Studie zu den Händen eines Apostels), is a pen-and-ink drawing by the German printmaker, painter and theorist Albrecht Dürer. The work is today stored at the Albertina museum in Vienna, Austria. Dürer created the drawing using the technique of white heightening and black ink on (self-made) blue colored paper. The drawing shows a close up of two male hands clasped together praying. Also, the partly rolled up sleeves are seen.
The drawing is 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. The sketched hands appear on the triptych on the right side of the central panel, and although the detail appears very similar, it is smaller in size in the triptych.
The drawing also once contained a sketch of the apostle’s head, but the sheet with the head has been separated from it. Overall, Dürer made 18 sketches for the altarpiece. 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.
Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea (Spanish: República de Guinea Ecuatorial, French: République de Guinée équatoriale, Portuguese: República da Guiné Equatorial), is a country located on the west coast of Central Africa, with an area of 28,000 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name evokes its location near both the Equator and the Gulf of Guinea. Equatorial Guinea is the only sovereign African state in which Spanish is an official language. As of 2015, the country had a population of 1,225,367.
Equatorial Guinea consists of two parts, an insular and a mainland region. The insular region consists of the islands of Bioko (formerly Fernando Pó) in the Gulf of Guinea and Annobón, a small volcanic island which is the only part of the country south of the equator. Bioko Island is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea and is the site of the country’s capital, Malabo. The Portuguese-speaking island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe is located between Bioko and Annobón. The mainland region, Río Muni, is bordered by Cameroon on the north and Gabon on the south and east. It is the location of Bata, Equatorial Guinea’s largest city, and Ciudad de la Paz, the country’s planned future capital. Rio Muni also includes several small offshore islands, such as Corisco, Elobey Grande, and Elobey Chico. The country is a member of the African Union, Francophonie, OPEC and the CPLP.
Since the mid-1990s, Equatorial Guinea has become one of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest oil producers. It has subsequently become the richest country per capita in Africa, and its gross domestic product (GDP) adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita ranks 43rd in the world; however, the wealth is distributed extremely unevenly, with few people benefiting from the oil riches. The country ranks 144th on the 2019 Human Development Index, with less than half the population having access to clean drinking water and 20% of children dying before the age of five.
Equatorial Guinea’s government is authoritarian and has one of the worst human rights records in the world, consistently ranking among the “worst of the worst” in Freedom House’s annual survey of political and civil rights. Reporters Without Borders ranks President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo among its “predators” of press freedom. Human trafficking is a significant problem; the 2012 U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report stated that Equatorial Guinea “is a source and destination for women and children subjected to forced labour and forced sex trafficking.” The report rates Equatorial Guinea as a government that “does not fully comply with minimum standards and is not making significant efforts to do so.”
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