The earliest of his dated pictures is _The Proposal_, in the Dresden Gallery, which belongs to the year 1656. The figures are of life size, and the treatment is proportionately broad, almost “rough” as Bode says, who adds: “It does not yet show us Vermeer in his developed individuality.” Yet some elements of the latter are already established: the superb plasticity in the modeling of the forms and the frank enjoyment in local colors, the lemon yellow of the girl’s jacket forming a splendid spot [Illustration: HEAD OF A GIRL JOHANNES (JAN) VERMEER HAGUE GALLERY] against the equally brilliant scarlet of the young man’s coat. Again, a minor point, an Oriental rug of crimson and yellow and blue design appears here as in later pictures, such as the _Girl with Water-Jug_ of the Metropolitan Museum. But the Dresden masterpiece of the artist’s youth--he was only twenty-four--differs from his later work not only in the size of the figures and breadth of brushwork, but also in the treatment of the chiaroscuro. The scene is not illumined with diffused light, but with a stroke of light which gives brilliance to the two principal figures and leaves the subordinate ones in shadow. It is an arrangement, suggestive of the example of Rembrandt, and hints at the fact that the picture was produced while Vermeer was still close to the influence of his teacher, Carel Fabritius. Another early example, betraying the same influence, is _Diana at Her Toilet_ of the Hague Gallery, which in the 1905 edition of the Catalogue is still assigned to Vermeer of Utrecht, though later criticism accepts it as by the artist of Delft. Closely following in subject a _Diana and Her Nymphs_, painted by Jacob van Loo in 1648, which is now in the Berlin Gallery, this picture is in the freer, looser method of _The Proposal_, and even repeats the same colors of red and yellow, though subtilized here to a delicate rose and a kind of snuff color. The light is still partially distributed so as to dapple the figures, and these are painted with a flickering brushstroke that helps to increase the fluttering effect of the light.