Black and grey Japanese style tattoo of a seated geisha holding an open fan, on the side of a torso.

Seated geisha with a fan in black and grey

Japanese · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A seated geisha in a patterned kimono holds an open fan to one side, with her hair swept up and decorated with flower ornaments. The linework is fine and dark, and soft grey shading gives the robes and hair depth, with a faint wispy outline behind the figure. The image is entirely black and grey and is framed close on the skin, with the design filling most of the frame.

Japanese Ribs Geisha Fan Kimono Hair ornament Floral pattern Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The fan had to dry before the rain came, because the teahouse on the harbour would not take anything that smelled of damp paper. Hana worked the brush in long strokes, letting the ink thin to grey where the hills met the mist, and she did not look up when the ferry boy shouted from the quay.

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The order had come from Tomiko, a dancer performing for the last time before she married a chandler from the far end of the harbour. She wanted camellias, red as lacquer, and a dark border like the hem of a good kimono. Hana had painted both before the bamboo ribs warped, and now she had to pin the paper flat again, one rib at a time, while the tide slid out beneath the pilings.

Her brother's boat was still out past the breakwater. She had watched its lantern go under the headland at dusk and had not stopped counting since. When the last rib clicked into place she painted the sleeve with three quick curves, then a thin wisp of cloud behind the shoulder, the way her mother had drawn steam rising from the rice pot, and she found her hand was steady for the first time all evening.

Tomiko unfolded the fan on the teahouse step and fanned herself once, twice. The air that came off it smelled of ink and salt. 'The fishermen carry them,' she said. 'Tucked into the oilskin, for luck.' Hana nodded and did not say that she had painted it with her brother's name in her head. Two days later the boats came in under a clean sky, and the first thing off the lead boat was a fan, its camellias bright against the wet grey planks, held up in a hand she knew.