Two other examples have been acquired in recent years by the Hague Gallery: an allegorical picture, _The New Testament_, and _Head of a Girl_. In both are introduced the cool blue and white that characterize many of Vermeer’s later pictures. The subject of the former, which is owned by Dr. Bredius of The Hague, is curiously affected, representing a lady in blue and white silk costume, resting her foot on a globe, as she sits beside a table on which are a crucifix, chalice, and book. On the wall behind her hangs a large picture of Christ upon the cross, attended by Mary and John; and on the left of it is a superb tapestry of orange, blue, and mellow green, while a crystal ball is suspended from the ceiling. In contrast with the glowing warmth of the curtain and the shadowed warmth of the picture on the wall, the lady’s figure presents a cool, white-lighted spot. The plastic feeling is strongly pronounced, the brushwork wonderfully limpid and firm, and the tonality extraordinarily fine. For the picture is still a study of tone, in which it differs from the _Head of a Girl_. For the latter is represented in a clearly diffused light, which is brightest around the head, and illumines in a subtle way the tender flesh-tints of the face, the bluish-white linen head-dress, and the bright full blue of a portion of the gown. The face wears a charming expression of concentration. This picture, indeed, very decidedly forecasts Vermeer’s developed individuality, yet Bode places it among his earlier pieces, about 1656. To this period also probably belongs the beautiful _Sleeping Girl_, recently acquired from the Rudolph Kann Collection by Mr. B. Altman. To a somewhat later date following close on 1656 Bode assigns the _View of Delft_, one of the greatest treasures of the Hague Gallery. There is a record of its sale in 1696, together with two other landscapes, one of which has disappeared, while the other is in the Six Collection in Amsterdam. The Hague picture is an unusual example of the artist, not only because it is a landscape, but also because of the warm light that pervades it. From a triangle of rosy yellowish foreground one looks across the quiet sheet of grayish-blue water to the line of houses of reddish-drab and brown bricks, and red and blue and yellow roofs, above which shows a high expanse of sky. The coloring, which again, it is to be observed, includes red and yellow, is brilliantly variegated, yet held in control by the stretches of sky and water. The ensemble is superbly artistic, while as a presentation of a late afternoon scene it could not be surpassed in naturalness. The picture, in fact, stands out among all the landscapes of the seventeenth century as being extraordinarily modern in feeling and manner, and its influence has been very great in the modern development of landscape-painting in Holland.