Realistic tattoo of a silver chain with a shaded crown charm and a small pink heart charm across the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Crown and charm chain on upper back

Realism · Back · Mixed · Photo

A close photograph of a tattoo across the upper back, showing a chain draped over the shoulder blade with a ring and two charms. The crown has detailed grey shading and highlights, while the small pink charm beside it is rendered in soft colour. The subject is framed tightly against bare skin with a black and patterned bra strap at the bottom edge.

Realism Back Chain Crown Charm Heart Necklace

Find an artist for this

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 chain came across my counter on a wet Tuesday, coiled in yellow tissue like something nobody wanted to look at directly. Fine silver links, the clasp gone, and hanging from a ring a crown no bigger than my thumbnail, shaded so carefully that the dips in its points looked like dents. Beside it sat a small pink heart, chipped at one edge and pale as a boiled sweet. Mr Adeyemi, who ran the shop before me and taught me to weigh gold by feel, always said the sentimental pieces came in with a story stuck to them. This one came with only a docket: R. Vane, and a date three years gone.

Keep reading

Rosalind Vane returned on the Friday with forty pounds already folded in her glove. She didn't want to sell it, she said, only to know it was safe. I gave her the ticket and she turned it over twice before tucking it into her purse, beside a photograph whose corner I could just make out, a wedding veil caught in the frame. She asked whether we would keep it in the back, away from the damp. I said we would, and I meant it.

The ticket ran out in March. Our rule is ninety days, after which the piece goes in the case with the other orphans. I hung the chain on the hook above the kettle instead, because the crown caught the window light there in the mornings and because I could not bring myself to price it. Some afternoons I find myself glancing up while the water boils, the little pink heart turning slowly on its ring as the steam shifts the air.

Last week a letter came from a solicitor's in Leeds asking whether we still held a silver chain under the name Vane. I wrote back that we did and that it was not for sale. Then I took it down from the hook and held it up to the window, the crown catching the grey light, and I waited for someone to come and claim it.