The figure types and mannerisms, such as the angle of the Angel's head and the open mouth, in this drawing can be paralleled in paintings such as the Noli me tangere in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, the Presentation in the Temple in San Domenico, Bologna and the Paradiso in Santa Maria dei Servi, Bologna, V. Fortunati Pietrantonio, Pittura bolognese del '500, Bologna, 1986, II, pp. 690, 699-700, illustrated. There are a number of Calvaert paintings of the Annunciation: such as those in Santa Maria dei Bulgari and San Domenico (V. Fortunati Pietrantonio, op. cit., p. 692 and p. 702, illustrated ) and in the Galleria Communale d'Arte, all in Bologna. The present study is, however, closest in composition, although in reverse, to the small devotional painting on copper with Colnaghi, exhibited at the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence in 1989. The prominent canopy of the bed, the angle of the Virgin's head, the proximity of the Angel Gabriel to the Madonna, and the cascading group of cherubim and putti in the center of the painting are all paralleled in the present drawing.
Studies of the Madonna of the Annunciation are in the Louvre (E. Starcky, Inventaire Général des Dessins des Ecoles du Nord, Paris, 1988, no. 74, illustrated), Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (R. Muzii, I Grandi Disegni Italiani nella Collezione del Museo di Capodimonte a Napoli, Mailand, 1987, fig. 19, illustrated) and in the Albertina, V. Birke and J. Kertész, Die Italienischen Zeichnungen der Albertina, Vienna, 1994, II, no. Inv. 2054, illustrated. The pose of the Madonna in the present drawing is closest to that in the latter sheet