Black and grey ornate cross tattoo with filigree detailing centred on a person's upper back, shown in a black and white photo.

Ornate cross on upper back

Neo-trad · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A detailed cross sits centrally on the upper back, with decorative scrollwork, a flower-like motif at the centre and layered panels along each arm. The linework is bold and dark, with grey shading that gives the panels depth. The photograph is black and white, framed from behind with a white camisole top and a stone wall behind the shoulders.

Neo-trad Back Cross Filigree Ornament Scrollwork Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Maud, the cross is finished at last, though Mr Pelling took three afternoons to get the scrollwork to sit right on the stone, and he would not let me help him with the pattern. You always said I could not draw a straight line with a ruler. Well, I went and copied the old lych gate at Saltmarsh instead, every curl of it, and Pelling says it will weather better than the mortar does.

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The chapel roof came down in March, as you know, and the bishop's men were no help at all. What we have instead is a wall with a gap in it and a little brass plate for the vestry. I asked for the flower in the middle to be a rose rather than a plain four-petal thing, because Father always said a rose was a sign of patience, and I have been short of that lately. Pelling said roses are fiddly and cost him a whole pot of ink to get the petals even. I told him that was the point.

The panels along the arms are my own idea. Each one has a band of dark shading, so when the light comes through the south window in the evening the whole thing goes grey and deep, like the sea behind the breakwater on a wet day. Ada from the post office came up to see it and said it looked like something a sailor's wife would carry in her pocket. I did not argue.

I am sending you the drawing I made before any of it. Keep it in your Bible with the pressed violets. The lamp is lit, the kettle is on, and there is a space by the fire for you whenever the coach can spare you a seat.

Your loving sister, Edith