Realistic grey and pink tattoo of a geisha in a kimono with cherry blossom branches, covering the upper back.

Geisha portrait with cherry blossom on a back

Realism · Back · Mixed · Photo

A large portrait of a geisha with her hair pinned up and a decorative ornament, wearing a kimono with a patterned shoulder. Soft greyscale shading gives the face and fabric a photographic depth, while pale pink cherry blossom branches frame her on the left and right. The design fills most of the upper back, with the skin around the edges visible.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The glass plates reached the studio on Thursdays, wrapped in newspaper that smelled of the harbour, and Tomiko had until Saturday to make each sitter look as though she had never been tired a day in her life. Mr Hayashi wanted the dancer from Shinbashi for the front window by Monday. Miss Kusaka had asked for the blossoms to be pale, not the strong pink of the postcards, because the trees along the Bund had gone to seed in April and she refused to hang a lie in a shop window.

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Tomiko worked at the retouching desk with a fine sable brush and a tin of watercolour. The face stayed grey, shaded soft as ash, and she left it alone, because Miss Kusaka's face needed no help. She dabbed rose onto the branches one petal at a time, then turned to the kimono and painted the small white circles across the shoulder exactly as they had been woven, counting them under the lamp so none would be missed.

On Saturday Miss Kusaka came back, looked at the print for a long while, and asked why the hairpin was still grey. Tomiko said silver photographs grey. Miss Kusaka said the pin had been her mother's, that it was not grey, and that she had worn it to every performance since the year the bridge was repaired. So Tomiko mixed a single drop of blue into the wash and drew one thin line along the silver fan of the ornament. It caught the lamplight and seemed to turn over, like a fish in shallow water.

On Monday the print went into the window beside the postcards. A boy pressed his nose to the glass and asked which of the flowers were real. Tomiko, who had come out to see for herself, told him none of them were, except the pin.

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