Dear Achillea:

I do not think is means anything. We need to be careful trying to make something of nothing.

I am not saying you are doing this, you are just wondering, but many scrupulous people and conspiracy nuts might interpret this hand gesture as the Church's involvement in the Freemasons, for example. This is nonsense.

Who do not know the artist's intent, or even if there was an "intent." The most logical presumption is that the model for the painting was holding his hand in that way. To presume anything more is rash and improper.

People often jump to huge conclusions about symbols. For example, what does the following hand gesture mean?

If anyone thinks this is a gesture of the occult or satanism used by rock bands and the like, that is wrong.

This hand gesture is the ILY sign from the American Sign Language. It combines the letters "I", "L", "Y". It is sign language for an informal expression of love.

Bottomline: a symbol can mean one thing to one person and quite another thing to some one else. And, what may appear to be a symbol of something may be nothing at all.

We can never jump to conclusions and must be very careful about this sort of thing, especially if the inference is negative. I say this to the general readers.

As for your question specifically, I do not thing the way the hand is being held means anything at all.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary