Black chalk and white chalk highlights on brown paper. Signed and dated upper right, 13 cm x 13 cm.
The drawing depicts the Virgin crowned and haloed with a radiant aureole. Her face, of a gentle and hieratic serenity, is framed by a veil. Pattée crosses punctuate the composition and lend the whole an organisation reminiscent of Byzantine icons or medieval illuminated manuscripts.
The technique combines black chalk — precise in the modelling of the face and the details of the crown — with white chalk highlights that sculpt the areas of light and the aureole, against a natural brown paper ground that serves as an intermediate mid-tone.
The Crowned Virgin, *Regina Caeli*, is one of the most codified Marian subjects in Western Christian iconography. Here, Maxence places her within the tradition of the *Mater Gloriosa* — the triumphant Virgin, Queen of Heaven — while imbuing the image with a sensibility characteristic of Symbolism: the idealised face, the radiant aureole and the frontal arrangement evoke both the Eastern icon and the Italian Primitives so dear to the Pre-Raphaelites, a movement that profoundly influenced the artist.
