Fine line tattoo of a scrolled carriage in blue-purple ink on the side of the ribs.

Carriage tattoo on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Colour · Photo

A fine line tattoo of an ornate carriage with a rounded body, a small finial on top and curling scroll wheels, drawn in a single blue-purple ink. The lines are even and thin, with the scrolls and a small decorative detail inside the carriage door adding interest. The tattoo sits centrally on the side of the ribs against plain skin, with a beige bra and a towel at the edges of the frame.

Fine line Ribs Scroll Flourish

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The carriage came out of the barn on the second Tuesday of January, when the frost had got into the yard ruts and Dad said the lane would bear a light load. Nobody had driven it since Gran's husband died. It had sat under a tarpaulin behind the hay bales with mouse nests in the seat cushions, and when I pulled the cover back the gilt had faded to the colour of weak tea, but the scrolls on the wheels still caught the lamp.

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Mum wanted it broken up for the iron. Ruth, my aunt up from Carlisle, said the body was ash and would hold, so we spent three weekends with linseed oil and a tin of black japan, Ruth humming hymns while I held the torch. She showed me how to reach the little knot of brass on the roof, shaped like a bud, and how the rounded door had a small shield cut into the panel that nobody had bothered to paint in years. I thought it was a fussy thing to keep. Ruth said fussy was the whole point.

On the last Saturday, Peg, Ruth's old grey mare, stood between the shafts with her breath smoking, and the coach rolled over the cattle grid as if it had only been waiting for the gate to open. We took the long road to the village with the lamps lit at four in the afternoon. At the shop, people came to the doorway in their aprons and just watched it pass, and Ruth lifted one gloved hand from the reins the way a queen might, and kept it lifted until we were past the church.