Indeed, to this early period can be assigned several of the works on which his reputation rests most securely to-day--his "Fair Rosamond," for instance, his first painting of "The Annunciation," a subject which he treated more than once, and his exquisite picture of "The Merciful Knight," in which there was no trace left of Rossetti's direction, but instead a clear expression of a quite personal view of art. No better proof could have been given of the strength of his character than was afforded by the rapidity with which he found his own way, and by the completeness of his emancipation from the influence of a man who was both his master and his friend--an influence which plainly dominated him when he painted his earliest water-colours of "Clara von Bork" and "Sidonia von Bork," both of which were entirely in Rossetti's manner. But in the three or four years which intervened between the production of these two little pictures and the completion of the far more ambitious composition, "The Merciful Knight," he had learned the secret of his own powers, and he had found how unnecessary it was for him to lean for support upon any one else. With this knowledge of himself, and with this consciousness of his capacity to take an independent position in the art world, came an increase of his activity as a painter. His water-colours became more numerous and more important, and he began to paint in oils several large pictures which he worked at with characteristic patience, setting them aside often for quite considerable periods and returning to them every now and again as opportunity offered. His manner of working, indeed, showed plainly the fertility of his mind; new ideas occurred to him in rapid succession, and his habit was to put them into a first rough shape on paper or canvas and to leave them to be carried to completion by slow stages with often long intervals between. One result of his method was that he frequently repeated the same subject with variations in treatment that were the outcome of some fresh consideration of the motive--each repetition, however, was an independent conception, not a mere reproduction of what he had done before.