Colour traditional tattoo of an hourglass with blue gems, red tulips and teal leaves on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Hourglass with tulips on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

An hourglass sits at the centre of the design, framed by ornate gold-edged caps with blue gemstones at each end. Red tulip buds and teal leaves extend from both sides, and the sand is shaded in soft greys. Bold black outlines and flat fills in red, orange, yellow and teal dominate the composition on the forearm.

Traditional Forearm Hourglass Tulip Flower Leaves Gemstone

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the glass on the galley bulkhead has been running since four bells this morning, and I have turned it so often the sand has gone clumsy with the damp off the stove. Cook says a man who cannot time a duff by feel is no better than a man who cannot tie a bowline, so I count the sand instead. It is grey and fine as flour, and it shifts in the top bulb the way the sea does when the wind drops.

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You asked in your last whether the ship's cook owns a proper timepiece. He has a brass one with gilt caps, the sort you'd expect on a parson's mantel, and a blue stone set at each end that the bosun swears is glass. I keep this little hourglass by the flour bin because it is the only thing aboard that never argues. When the top empties I flip it and say the names of the flowers under your window: red, red, then the yellow one by the gate, which I have not seen since March.

Yesterday the sand stuck halfway and I thought we would have raw dough for the whole watch. I shook it until it ran, and I laughed so loudly the second mate came down to see if we were sinking. Tell your mother the seed tulips came from the post at Haarlem, and that I want the red ones again next spring if she can spare the bulbs.

We make the Downs on Thursday if the wind holds. Put the kettle on at four, Nell. I will turn the glass when I hear the bell, and when the last grain falls I will be thinking of you, though the sand will not have had time to notice.