This drawing, created when he was 13 years old, is Albrecht Dürer’s oldest surviving self-portrait. He drew the picture with a silverpoint in the same year that he began an apprenticeship as a goldsmith in the workshop of his father, Albrecht Dürer the Elder. Even at that time, however, he was already leaning toward a career as a painter. The young Dürer is depicted in three-quarter profile, wearing a cap and with his index finger extended, his gaze following it. The extended index finger is also found in depictions of the Apostle John at the foot of the cross, as is clearly shown on the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald, created a good thirty years later.