Black and grey realism tattoo of three roses with lace-style ornament and hanging drops across a woman's upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three roses with lace on upper back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

Three large roses are stacked diagonally down the upper back, shaded in soft greys with fine highlights on the petals. Lace-like ornamental panels, stippled and filled in dark ink, frame the roses on the left and sweep out along the top, with a row of dangling drop motifs beneath. The composition is centred on the spine and the black and grey palette gives strong contrast against the pale skin.

Realism Botanical Dotwork Back Rose Lace Filigree Ornament Drop Floral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Hetty, the veil is finished, and I still have the pricking marks in my eyes, so forgive the smudges. Mrs Pryor carried it up the hill on Tuesday in a box lined with tissue, and she only grunted, which from her is praise. The bride's mother cried into her gloves, so it must have been right.

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You will not believe the pattern. Mr Lusk drew it on vellum that smelled of tobacco: three roses stacked down the length of the shawl as if they grew from one stem and were too lazy to climb. The bud sits highest, half open, then the blown rose, then the great full one at the hem, nearly touching the lace. He wanted the ground behind them dark, so we worked a stippled mesh in black silk until it looked like evening coming up through the cloth.

The strange part came near the end. I had the last drops hanging from the scallop, little jet beads on linen thread, and when I went to tie them off I found my fingers had carried on working without me, making one more rose than the design asked for. I left it. Mr Lusk would have had me unpick it, but Mrs Pryor looked at it a long while and said nothing, and that was the end of the argument.

So bring the good scissors when you come at Michaelmas, and the tin of Father's old bobbins. I will show you where the extra rose hides, under the left-hand flounce, where only someone who has pricked it would ever think to look. Your loving sister, Lottie.