Letter from Gustav Waagen to Dr. Ernst Becker sending a retouched photograph of a Raphael work in the Berlin Picture Gallery and promising a copy of the Raphael engraving discovered in the Düsseldorf Academy, with comments on other related matters.

Waagen announces that he is at last sending the retouched photograph which he has had made in accordance with the Prince Consort's wish. It has been delayed by exceptionally dark weather which often prevented the artist, Herr Baar, from working at all. He has retouched a lot, as the photograph was very indistinct, especially the figures of the two saints. Waagen has overseen the work all along and thinks the Prince will be satisfied, and that the artist has earned the 3 Friedrichs d'or which he charged. An additional Friedrich d'or is owed for the preparation of the negative.

Waagen goes on to recall that when the Prince visited Berlin two years ago he seemed to doubt the authenticity of Raphael's Diotalevi Madonna, but he will have seen since then that Passavant treats it as genuine in his Volume 3, p.170; Herr von Rumohr was of the same opinion.

Ignorance, and hatred and jealousy of Sir Charles [Eastlake], Passavant and himself, Waagen reports, have enabled the 'worthless' Morris Moore to promote his cause with varying degrees of triumph in Munich, Dresden and Vienna. Waagen was surprised that Gruner, who was named by Moore in an article in the Dresden Journal as one of the people who had acknowledged his little picture as a Raphael, had not simply contradicted him.

Waagen reports that the Manchester Institution has asked him to lend some good pictures for an exhibition in August, which pleases him because artists are suffering from a severe decline in interest throughout Germany. Although the request will put him to a great deal of trouble, he has agreed for the sake of German art and the struggling artists.

He presumes that the Prince Consort will have heard about the engraving (Kupferstich) that Andreas Müller found in the Düsseldorf Academy and considers to be by Raphael himself. Waagen will make sure that the Prince receives a copy of it in one form or another. Finally, he reports that Becker's instructions about mounting the photograph have been followed exactly.

Waagen adds a postscript expressing distress that the negative of the picture of the monk got broken, but relief that it was nevertheless possible to obtain a good print.

See VIC/ADDA10/85/419 for Waagen's letter suggesting the retouching of this photograph, of the Raphael Madonna and Child in the Berlin Picture Gallery, and referring to the negative he is sending of the Princess of Prussia's picture of a monk.

Related Material: For related correspondence, see VIC/ADDA10/85/419.