This quirky self-portrait from 1872 shows the painter Adolph Menzel (1815–1905) in the background, half-hidden by a truck. The work was likely painted after Menzel’s time at Königshütte, where he prepared his painting The Iron Rolling Mill. Obviously, the main point of the picture is not a self-portrait of the artist but rather the worker: he is standing in front of the opening to the steam hammer, stoking the embers with long rods.