The creative evolution of contemporary Polish painting was also expressed in the imitation of the works of outstanding European masters. Using the example of selected, mostly unknown graphic models and paintings created under the influence of Flemish works, the article discusses the relationship between the model and the copy. Without contact with the original, only based on a graphic template, in the process of designing a new painting structure, both faithful and fragmentary copies were created. The latter were usually dominated by one scene, which was either reduced or enriched with props, people or scenes of secondary, illustrative importance. There were also compilations consisting of details of similar value within the created whole. A type of fragmentary images were images subject to simultaneous formal, substantive and thematic transformations. The resulting structure was dominated by the motif of intersecting diagonals, axiality, spatiality and the multi-planar effect, as well as the desire to verticalize the composition. The artistic concept of a single work was adopted, giving it its own style, composition, drawing, texture and character expression. An example of the copying process is the work of the Bernardine monk, Father Franciszek Lekszycki (ca. 1600-1668), who almost literally adopted patterns from Flemish works, primarily those of Peter Paul Rubens and Antoni van Dyck. He combined traditional formal means with innovative achievements of European baroque art.