In memory of his brother, Oldřich Zajíc of Hazmburk founded the altarpiece of St. Johns in their family chapel at St Vitus Cathedral.

The picture's frame was purchased in 1883 from the estate of Josef Vojtěch Hellich for the Prague City Museum, from where it came to gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of Art.

Information from the St. Vitus inventory of the late 15th century mentions a beautiful panel of the Virgin Mary with the portraits of the four Evangelists and four patron saints of the Czech lands.

[3] The picture in a cut frame decorated with twelve portraits is painted in tempera on a chalk base, on a soft-wood panel covered with stretched canvas.

In the corners of the frame there are four quadrilobes with figures of angels bearing ribbons on which there are fragments of the text of the popular 12th-century Marian antiphon Regina coeli, laetare in which the faithful looked for protection against the plaque.