Letter from Gustav Waagen to the Prince Consort sending copies of an essay on Raphael which he has written and promising to send a photograph of the one Raphael picture in the Berlin gallery of which the Prince does not yet have a reproduction.

Dr. Waagen writes that he is enclosing an off-print of an essay on Raphael which has been published in Friedrich von Raumer's 'Historisches Taschenbuch' for 1859. Although the Prince, who is so knowledgeable about the artist, will find little new information in it, he will recognise that Waagen's aim was to give the general public an overview of the most important aspects of Raphael's genius. Passavant's excellent work is both too dear and too detailed for general consumption. Waagen's little essay, however, contains a few new points of view which have been welcomed by German art connoisseurs. He is the first to have clearly demonstrated Sebastiano del Piombo's strong influence on Raphael. Dr. Waagen encloses a second copy for the Queen, as he knows from the Princess Royal how much she shares the Prince's admiration for Raphael and it may therefore give her pleasure, especially as it will be easy for the Prince to show her copies of the works to which Waagen refers, from the wonderful collection he has worked so hard to bring together. He goes on to say that the Prince will have received from Baron Stockmar the copy of the portrait miniature (unspecified), and he hopes HRH will be satisfied with it. Waagen himself found it difficult to distinguish the copy from the original. Finally, Dr. Waagen regrets that various attempts to photograph the one remaining picture by Raphael in the Berlin Picture Gallery of which the Prince is lacking a copy have been so unsuccessful, because of the lack of skill among Berlin photographers, that he did not dare send them. But he will not rest until he has obtained a result that is at least somewhat satisfactory. A note at the top of the letter by Dr. Becker records that it was answered from Balmoral on 18 October.