5157. Dante Gabriel Rossetti to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 177.
16 Cheyne Walk
[Postmark: 14 January 1863]
My dear Browning
I got your pictures safely & will get them in hand at once—i.e. almost at once, having already had them more than one day. I will write you as soon as there is any thing to show—but tell me—do you want or would you like to have anything done to the pictures themselves. The only thing I—in innocence of dodges on the subject—can project, is just to fill the holes with the proper colour over the canvas appearing beneath but without levelling the surface. This would already be a great improvement, and at any rate would involve no danger. After this I should varnish the pictures slightly. As to the frames I shall adopt the black & gold plan, leaving the old gold and only blacking rims &c. The font affair I shall blacken & gild in patterns with design. I think this one—both font & frame, may be made very jolly.
I have been taken ill ever since with the idea of your saying you would tell that Helen subject to Leighton. Pray do give it me if you dont want it; and if you can, increase the gift with the correct original passage relating the fact. I will paint it forthwith, for I want to paint a life size Helen– [1]
Yours affectionately
D G Rossetti
Address: Robert Browning Esq / 19 Warwick Crescent / Harrow Road / Bayswater.
Publication: Rossetti, 3, 21–22.
Manuscript: Princeton University.
1. See SD2629.
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