Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cameo silhouette of a woman on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black silhouette of a woman in profile sits inside an oval cameo, with a ponytail, a cluster of flowers in her hair and a small butterfly to the right. The ornate frame has shaded grey scrollwork and a bow-like base at the bottom. The tattoo is entirely black and grey and fills most of the frame of the photograph, with a blurred seated person in the background.

Traditional Calf Cameo Silhouette Woman Profile Flower Butterfly Frame

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nan, I have finished the commission for Mrs Harrowby at last, and I am writing before the candle gutters so you will know I have not lost my hand. She came in on Tuesday with her hair tied up in a ribbon she had clearly fussed over in the hall mirror, and she asked me to keep every stray wisp of it. I sat at the window for the better part of an hour with the black card and my good scissors, turning her head by the chin until the shadow found the line of her nose just right.

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She had brought a sprig of white blossom from her mother's garden in a twist of paper and wanted it pinned in her hair, so I cut the flowers separately and fixed them to the card at the crown with a dab of gum. Then came the butterfly. She would not say why it had to sit to the right of her face, only that it must be facing away from her, as though it had just decided to leave. I cut it from the corner scrap, the bit I would normally have swept into the grate.

When I set the finished piece against the lamp, the little gilt frame caught the light and she laughed, a short surprised sound, the first I had heard from her in three sittings. She asked me to mount the butterfly outside the oval, on the bare paper below the frame, so it could get out. I told her that was not how cameos were done. She said she had never much cared for how things were done, and paid me the extra shilling without being asked.

Tell Father the workshop shelves are full again and I have enough card to last until Michaelmas. I will try to come up at the weekend, though the coach is dear and I may have to walk the last stretch. Give my regards to Mary and the little ones, and tell young Sam his kite string is in the drawer where he left it.

Your loving brother, Tom