his shoulders, and gentle eyes. He was very tall, stately, and full of
dignity.

In his father's shop he made little clay figures which were afterward
moulded in metal; also he learned to carve wood and ivory, and he
added the touch of originality to all that he did. He was the Leonardo
da Vinci of Germany, an intellectual man, a poet, painter, sculptor,
engraver, and engineer. He approached everything that he did from an
intellectual point of view, looking for the reasons of things.

After a while in his father's shop, he found mere craftsmanship
irksome, and he begged to be allowed to enter a studio. This was a
great disappointment to the father, even a distress, because he could
see no very quick nor large returns in money for an artist, and he
sorely needed the help of his son; but being kind and reasonable, he
consented Albrecht was apprenticed to the only artist of any repute
then in Nuremberg, Wolgemuth.

To his studio Albrecht went, at the age of fifteen, and if he did not
learn much more of painting, under that artist's direction, than his
own genius had already taught him, he learned the drudgery of his
work; how to grind colours and to mix them, and he studied wood
engraving also.

In Wolgemuth's studio he remained for the three years of his
apprenticeship, and then he fled to better things. For a time he
followed the methods of another German artist, Schongauer, but finally
he went forth to try his luck alone. He wandered from place to place,
practising all his trades, goldsmithing, engraving, whatever would
support him, yet always and everywhere painting.