Letter from August Schleiermacher, the Director of the Darmstadt Museum to Charles Ruland describing the Raphael drawing in the museum's collection and sending a photograph of it.

Schleiermacher writes that he is enclosing a photograph of the Raphael drawing in the Darmstadt Museum, which is a preliminary sketch of the entry of Cardinal Giovanni dei Medici (Pope Leo X) into Florence. It is drawn on yellowish paper in bistre or sepia. The subject belongs to the series of events from the life of Leo X depicted in the decorative borders of the Raphael Tapestries. According to the information Schleiermacher has about it, there are three other original drawings of the same subject, which have been published. He does not know whether the composition is the same in these and in the Darmstadt drawing, or whether the four drawings are four different designs. Nothing has been published about the Darmstadt drawing, but it seems to be an original. The photograph is quite good; it shows the ribbed paper and the hole in the original. The beginning of the letter is missing and the addressee is not named, but the writer uses the familiar 'Du' form to him. It is assumed that the letter is to Charles Ruland.