Realistic colour tattoo of a human skull framed by pink roses and grey scrollwork on the upper arm and shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realistic skull and roses on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A large realistic skull sits at the centre of the design, with pink and red roses above and below it and grey scrollwork filling the gaps. The skull is shaded in soft tones with smooth gradients, and the roses have detailed petals in pink, red and green foliage. The tattoo covers the upper arm and shoulder, and the composition wraps around the curve of the arm.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Skull Rose Scrollwork Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The king wanted the roses first and the bone second, so Maud Tavery mixed her madder and lead white before she dared touch the skull. He had sent for her at dusk, his physician shuffling behind him in carpet slippers. He wanted a panel for the chapel wall at Harrowgate, but not his own face. "Paint me what I will be," he said, and pointed at the skull on the oak table, its jaw wired shut with silver.

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She began with the bone because the bone was honest. She laid in the shadow beneath the cheekbone and the dark hollows of the eyes, soft as wet slate. He watched her hands the whole time. Each time she reached for the flowers, he told her to keep them small, a ruff of pink and rust at the edges. "Let the roses be a rumour," he said. "Let the bone be the fact."

On the ninth evening she carried the finished panel down to him. The roses curled round the crown like a wreath thrown onto a grave, and the grey scrollwork beneath them looked like smoke from a snuffed candle. The king leaned close and she saw his lips move, counting the teeth one by one the way a child counts coins.

"Good," he said at last. "The roses are the only part of me I was ever brave enough to show." He held out his hand for her brush. Maud gave it to him, and he dabbed a single red petal over the bridge of the skull's nose, where his own face would have sat. Then he asked her to take the panel to the chapel before the bells rang.