Black and grey Art Nouveau style tattoo of a woman with flowing hair and drapery along the side of the ribs.

Art Nouveau woman with flowing drapery on ribs

Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A woman with long, flowing hair and small flowers tucked into it leans forward within swirling drapery. The design uses soft grey shading and fine dark outlines, with the fabric and hair rendered as sweeping ribbon-like shapes. The figure sits diagonally across the side of the ribs, with the drapery extending down towards the hip, against a plain, pale background of skin.

Ribs Woman Figure Drapery Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Cuthbert, the abbot has finally let me stop copying Luke and given me the margins of the Hours of Our Lady to work on. For a fortnight I have been trying to paint a woman who leans out of the initial letter as though the page itself is pulling her by the hair. Prior Gerard says she looks like a drowned saint. I say she looks like the Wear on a windy morning, and he says that is no answer.

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The ribbons of her hair and veil will not stay inside the frame, so I have let them spill down into the border. I mixed the grey from oak gall and thinned it with rainwater until it reads like smoke or river current, and I left the page bare where the light should be. I pressed a sprig of feverfew and a little rosemary into her braid so the small white flowers would catch the eye. Brother Osric, who cannot draw a horse, called it heathen. I told him the sweeping lines of the cloth are only the vine scrolls from the chapter house roof, pulled loose and set free.

Last night the abbot came down to the scriptorium with his lamp, which he never does. He held it close to the vellum for a long time and asked why the figure seemed to be leaving. I said the drapery must keep moving or it would sit on the page like a stain, and he grunted, which I have decided to take as approval. When he had gone I banked the fire and went to bed.

This morning the ink was dry, but the veil had stiffened at one edge and lay a finger's width further out across the margin than I had left it. I have not told Gerard, and I have not touched it. Pray for my hand, Cuthbert, and for the hour I am lazy enough to sleep through the lauds bell.