Neo-traditional tattoo of a dog wearing a top hat, monocle and red bow tie inside an oval frame, on the thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dog in top hat and monocle on a thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A bulldog-style dog in a black top hat, round monocle and red bow tie is set within an ornate oval frame. The linework is bold and dark, with solid fills and smooth shading on the face and fur. Warm browns, orange, red and white dominate the palette, and the design fills the frame centrally against a pale background.

Neo-trad Thigh Dog Top hat Monocle Bow tie Frame Portrait

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mr Ambrose Tilley came up from Paddington on the Thursday train with a steamer trunk, a silver-topped cane and a bulldog called Admiral who wore his black top hat at a jaunty angle. Mrs Pryce, who had kept Sea View House on Marine Parade for thirty-one years, took one look at the monocle and asked for the rent in advance. He paid it in silver, every sixpence, and asked only for a room that faced the pier.

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I was the girl who carried up the hot water, so I saw the rest. Each morning the Admiral sat on the bottom stair with his red bow tie straight while Mr Tilley read The Times aloud to him, and each evening they walked as far as the lighthouse and back. The other lodgers found it absurd. Mrs Pryce found it absurd too, until the wet week in October when Mr Tilley did not come down to breakfast and the dog sat at the foot of the stairs and would not be moved.

I found him in the back room, propped against the pillows with his spectacles folded on the washstand. Beside the bed lay a letter in copperplate, addressed to the proprietress. It said the rooms were paid until spring, that the Admiral was to have the window seat, and that the painted oval in the hall, the dog dressed for church in a frame of gilt scrollwork, was to hang where the morning light fell on it. Mrs Pryce read it twice, then wept, then sent me for the steps and the hammer.

The picture is still there. Guests ask about it, and I tell them the truth, which is that every morning before the kettle goes on I straighten the bow on the glass and wish the gentleman good day.