hf = figure ("visible", "off");

## patch applied
if (exist ("annotation"))
  han = annotation ("rectangle");  # create annotation axes
  delete (han);                    # we are not measuring annotations execution time  
endif

nax = [1 2 4 8 16 32];
exectime = zeros (2,size (nax));
kk = 1;
for n = nax;
  hax = ones (1, n);
  tic (); 
  for ii = 1:n
    hax(ii) = axes ();
  endfor
  printf ("%d axes: \t%3.2f s\n", n, toc ());
  delete (hax);
endfor
