Dante Gabriel Rossetti letter to Ellen Heaton, 1863 November 11

Rossetti tells Heaton he will return the Bethlehem Gate piece she has sent to him as he cannot detect "any alteration whatever" in the work. Rossetti similarly finds Dante's dream unchanged but says he knows how he can revise it and greatly improve it. He states he can heighten its colour and removed the "stiffness, smallness of execution" in the work but that it would take a week or a fortnight to change and could only be done as a commission. If Heaton does not wish Rossetti to carry out the alterations, Rossetti states he will not need to keep the drawing long. Rossetti says he will try to photograph the work but he does not expect the endeavor to be "very promising." In a postscript, Rossetti suggests that Heaton has the work's frame and the inscription replaced and asks if he should arrange for this to be carried out.