One of the earliest portraits painted by Duerer is in the Albertina at Vienna, and bears this inscription: "This I have drawn from myself from the looking-glass, in the year 1484, when I was still a child. ALBERT DUERER." Six years later he painted the beautiful portrait of his father which is now in the gallery at Florence; and it is a question whether this is not as finely executed as any portrait of his later years. When Duerer left Wohlgemuth he started upon the student journey which was then the custom with all German youths, and is still practised in a modified degree. These youths, after serving their apprenticeship in the occupation they were to follow, travelled, and worked at their trade or profession in the cities of other countries. Duerer was absent four years, but we know little of what he did or saw, for in his own account of his life he says only this: "And when the three years were out my father sent me away. I remained abroad four years, when he recalled me; and, as I had left just after Easter in 1490, I returned home in 1494, just after Whitsuntide." In the same year, in July, Duerer was married to Agnes Frey. He was also admitted to the guild of painters, and we may say that he was now settled for life. It is a singular fact that, although Duerer painted several portraits of his father and himself, he is not known to have made any of his wife. Some of his sketches are called by her name, but there is no good reason for this. Duerer was so industrious, and executed so many pictures, copper-plates, and wood engravings within the six years next after his return to Nuremburg, that it is not possible to give an exact account of them here. In 1500 an event occurred which added much to his happiness and to his opportunities for enlarging his influence. It was the return to Nuremburg of Willibald Pirkheimer, one of the friends of Duerer's childhood, between whom and himself there had always existed a strong affection. Pirkheimer was rich and influential, and at his house Duerer saw many eminent men, artists, scholars, reformers, and theologians, and in their society he gained much broader knowledge of the world, while he received the respect which was due to his genius and character. [Illustration: FIG. 62.--A SCENE FROM DUERER'S WOOD ENGRAVINGS OF THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY.]