Traditional style tattoo of a grey teacup with curling steam and a red rose with green leaves, placed on the thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Teacup and rose on a thigh

Traditional · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

A teacup with a decorative pattern and curling steam sits behind a red rose with green leaves. Bold black outlines define the shapes, with grey shading on the cup and layered red tones in the rose petals. The design is centred on the thigh, with a small part of another tattoo visible at the right edge of the frame.

Traditional Thigh Teacup Rose Steam Leaves Saucer

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dearest Hetty, the kettle has gone cold twice since breakfast and I have stopped pretending to care. Mother's blue willow set is in the crate by the door, the one with the little flowers climbing the cup, and I cannot bring myself to wrap it properly. You know which piece I mean, the cup with the chip under the handle that Father swore he never made. I found it wedged behind the larder shelf this morning with a dried rose pressed flat inside the saucer, red gone the colour of rust.

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The lawyer's man came up the drive at eleven and stood in the hall turning his hat in his hands, as if the house might ask him to stay for luncheon. He wanted the inventory signed. I signed it. Every spoon, every candlestick, every cracked tureen in the scullery, and then he asked whether the rose bushes along the south wall were 'chattels or fixtures', and I laughed so hard he thought I had taken ill. Hetty, they have been there longer than either of us.

So I have cut what I could carry. The rose is in a jam jar on the windowsill, steam from the kettle curling round it while I write. I am taking the teapot to Carlisle on Thursday and the cup is staying with me. Come in the spring if you can. The leaves are already coming through the old wall, and I want someone beside me when I see whether it has bloomed red or white.