Black and grey pencil drawing of an ornate lotus flower with scrollwork, dotted chains and a faceted teardrop gem, in a dotwork and botanical style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate lotus design with scrollwork and gem drop

Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash

A detailed drawing of a symmetrical lotus flower with layered petals filled with fine patterned linework and stippled dots. Curling baroque scrollwork extends to either side, and strands of dotted chain hang beneath the petals and end in small droplet gems and a large faceted teardrop stone. The design is shown in pencil or ink in black and grey on a plain pale background, centred in the frame.

Dotwork Botanical Lotus Scrollwork Filigree Dotted chain Flower Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The master cut the teardrop stones in the back room on Thursdays, when the gas was lowest and nobody climbed the stairs from Clerkenwell. I was sixteen and had been given the pencil work because my hand was steady and my letters were small. He wanted a lotus for a widow in Islington, with her husband's name hidden somewhere in the petals, and he handed me the pattern book with its stained cover and told me to count the dots twice.

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I drew it on tracing paper, petal by petal, working outward from the centre where the lines met. The filigree was the hard part. Every curl had to lead the eye back to the heart of the flower without one line crossing another. By the third night my fingers were black to the knuckle, and the scrollwork on either side looked like smoke caught mid-curl. The master came up with a lamp, held the sheet at arm's length, and said nothing for so long that I was sure I had ruined it.

Then he tapped the droplet at the bottom with the end of his cigar. 'Too honest,' he said. 'Give her a stone that catches the light and lies about its weight.' So I shaded the facets until the teardrop looked heavy enough to drag the whole design down, and I left one facet near the top unshaded, where the paper showed through.

The widow came for the drawing in March. She held it under the window, turned it slowly, and found the name in the petals without being shown where to look. She didn't cry. She asked whether the blank facet was a mistake. I told her it was where the light got in, which was what the master had told me to say, and which I now think was true.