[newbie] show a specific figure instance

Hi there,
I'm new to matplotlib...here is the problem, probably trivial:
I've 44 figures handles, and I want to show 1 only, how can I set
show() to display one of this instances?
if I call show() it opens all the 44 figures.

I'm using matplotlib 0.87.7 on ipython 0.7.1 under ubuntu dapper

thanks

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