The Blessed Virgin Mary from the scene "Annunciation" (right part). Artistic reconstruction of a stained-glass panel from the Dominican church in Kraków

Part of the same 1895 series as the Mary Magdalene reconstruction, this pencil study of the Blessed Virgin from the Annunciation scene documents the right portion of a stained-glass panel originally in the Dominican church in Kraków. Wyspiański's work on the Dominican windows was systematic: he worked panel by panel through the surviving and recorded glazing, producing reconstruction drawings that were both archaeological records and demonstrations of the Gothic artist's compositional method. Pencil on tracing paper was appropriate for preliminary reconstruction work, allowing adjustments and corrections that watercolour or paint would not permit. The Annunciation was among the most iconographically rich subjects in medieval glazing programmes, and Wyspiański's attention to the Virgin's pose and gesture within the existing Gothic format reveals his deep familiarity with medieval visual conventions.

Pencil on tracing paper produces a delicate, monochromatic reconstruction that communicates form and line rather than colour. Wyspiański's draughtsmanship here is precise and analytical — the lines describing drapery folds and figure contour are both accurate to the Gothic original and inflected by his own Art Nouveau sensibility in the rhythmic quality of flowing contour.