It is interesting to note that Burne-Jones designed an Annunciation in stained glass for Castle Howard Chapel in 1872, like his preceding designs for The Annunciation, the figures are situated more or less on the flat and in a square format. A pre-liminary sketch exists (Fitzwilliam Museum Sketchbook 1876) which shows the emergence of the vertical format from the a first square composition which relates back to the Castle Howard stained glass design. However on the same page is a rough layout which was to become that of the final painting and was presumably developed into this drawing and subsequently worked up to a watercolour now in the British Museum ( Acc. no. 1954,0508.15). The suggested evolution from the one format to the other is that the laurel bush in the stained glass design is now positioned at the bottom of the vertical and Gabriel is situated above it, the Madonna is opposite leaving an area behind which was filled with architectural structures suggested by the streets of Sienna, which he had drawn in 1871 and 1873. The need for a vertical painting was possibly the outcome of the desire of the commissioner, the eighth Earl of Carlisle. The stained glass design for Castle Howard was made in 1872 and the painting was designed two years later in 1874, at that time the eighth Earl was in possession of Castle Howard and no doubt the commission was encouraged by Burne-Jones's friend, George Howard who was later to inherit the title of ninth Earl of Carlisle in 1889.