Duerer before he became a painter." The most interesting of these early
works is in the Albertina at Vienna, and bears the inscription: "This
I have drawn from myself from the looking-glass, in the year 1484,
when I was still a child.--ALBERT DUeRER." It shows a handsome and
pensive boy-face, oval in shape, with large and tender eyes, filled
with solemnity and vague melancholy; long hair cut straight across the
forehead, and falling over the shoulders; and full and pouting lips.
It is faulty in design, but shows a considerable knowledge of drawing,
and a strong faculty for portraiture. The certain sadness of
expression tells that the schoolboy had already become acquainted with
grief, probably from the straitened circumstances of his family, and
the melancholy deaths of so many brothers and sisters. The great
mystery of sorrow was full early thrown across the path of the solemn
artist. This portrait was always retained by Duerer as a memorial of
his childhood.

He says of his father, "For me, I think, he had a particular
affection; and, as he saw me diligent in learning, he sent me to
school. When I had learned to write and read, he took me home again,
with the intention of teaching me the goldsmith's work. In this I
began to do tolerably well." He was taken into the goldsmith's
workshop in his thirteenth year, and remained there two years,
receiving instruction which was not without value in his future life,
in showing him the elements of the arts of modelling and design. The
accuracy and delicacy of his later plastic works show how well he
apprehended these ideas, and how far he acquired sureness of
expression. The elder Albert was a skilful master-workman, highly
esteemed in his profession, and had received several important
commissions. It is said that the young apprentice executed under his
care a beautiful piece of silver-work representing the Seven Agonies
of Christ.

"But my love was towards painting, much more than towards the
goldsmith's craft. When at last I told my father of my inclination, he
was not well pleased, thinking of the time I had been under him as
lost if I turned painter. But he left me to have my will; and in the
year 1486, on St. Andrew's Day, he settled me apprentice with Michael
Wohlgemuth, to serve him for three years. In that time God gave me
diligence to learn well, in spite of the pains I had to suffer from
the other young men." Thus Duerer describes his change in life, and the
emba