Neo-traditional colour tattoo of a woman in profile wearing a striped head wrap, framed by a gold laurel wreath on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Profile portrait in a laurel wreath on upper arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A woman in side profile wears a striped head wrap and has a rosy blush and blue eye, set against a teal wash behind her shoulder. Bold black outlines define the features, with grey shading in the wrap and clothing and flat gold leaves forming an open wreath around the figure. Colour dominates the composition, and the wreath sits centred within the frame on the arm.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dearest Ilse, the coin-press at Halvane has stopped again, so I am writing by the light of a dye vat, which is the only thing in this city that never goes cold. Master Corvin has finished the new silver for the Regent's mint, and you will not believe the face he gave her. He would not let me near the die, but I saw the trial strike: a woman turned to the left, her head bound in a striped wrap the way the river women tie their hair against the spray.

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The wreath is what kept him awake for three nights. Gold leaf, he insisted, not brass, because the Regent's steward is paid in gold and wants the people to see it. I ground the teal for the wash behind her shoulder myself, from the blue clay of the kingfisher wells, and it took eleven tries before he stopped scowling at it. Corvin says a face on a coin should look as though it is listening to something far off.

Last night the steward came with a second order. The face must now resemble the Regent's new wife, and the laurel must be for victory, not olive for peace. Corvin took his graver and cut the eye deeper, filling the groove with blue enamel, so the woman would look away from the crown. Then he set the die in the press, pulled the first strike, and handed it to me without a word.

It is warm in my palm, and the leaves are sharp at their edges where he chose to leave them unfinished. I have kept it in my apron pocket, under the rag I use for the dye. If the steward asks, I will say I have never seen it. Write soon, and tell Mother the wrap is not the one she taught us to tie.

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