Black and grey realism tattoo of a woman in profile wearing an ornate Egyptian-style headdress, on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realism portrait of a woman in a headdress on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A woman is shown in side profile, wearing a tall, ornate headdress with pleated and banded patterns that extend above her head. The tattoo uses fine greyscale shading to model the face, shoulder and jewellery, with smooth transitions between dark and light tones. It is set against the skin of the upper arm, with dark clothing and black and white striped fabric visible behind it.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The crate came off the supply boat yesterday with the straw still in it, and Halvard had to lever the lid off with a crowbar because the old nails had rusted to nothing. Inside was a plaster bust of a woman with a headdress as tall as a lamp housing, pleated and banded like a folded fan. Someone in Alexandria made it a hundred years ago for a dealer who never paid. It has sat in a shed in Leith ever since, and now the trustees want it on the mainland by June, cleaned and mounted.

I have spent three evenings with it under the cataloguing lamp. The shading is so fine that in the dusk the cheekbone seems to lift off the plaster, and the pale ridge of the shoulder looks warm, as if someone has only just taken their hand away. Halvard says I am being fanciful. He has been out here nine years and considers anything that does not blink to be furniture.

Last night the fog came in thick enough to swallow the second flash, and I went down to the store to check the crate lid. The bust was sitting where I had left it, face to the window, looking out over the rocks the way the light does. I stood there longer than I should have. Then the beam swept round and lit her from the side, and for one breath her headdress threw a shadow across the wall in exactly the shape of the stripes on the sailcloth hanging by the door.

I am sending you the photograph I took, though it will not do her justice. Tell me if you think I should ask the trustees to leave the cast here one more season. I am not ready to watch her go down the path in a van.

Love, Nell

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