Tattooing in the Victorian era

Hi everyone, I'm back! :)

Since I've decided to get a tattoo in the near future, I was doing some researches and found many interesting facts.
What surprised me the most is that tattoos were fashionable among the British upper class during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Obviously the Victorian era was high season for tattooing among royalty and the aristocracy.

• HOW DID IT ALL BEGAN?

Tattoos were introduced to Europe at the end of the 1700s. Captain Cook
ventured into the South Pacific and came home with stories of tattooed people. Many
officers and sailors from his ships were the first Europeans who got tattoos.
Some of these sailors learned how to tattoo from Polynesians and after they retired from
seafaring, they opened their own tattoo shops in various port cities in Europe.
Soon tattooing became a cultural marker of sailors and all those who interacted with them, such as prostitutes and even criminals.

(classic illustration of a tattooed Maori from Cook’s first voyage)

IMAGE SOURCE

• BACK TO THE VICTORIAN ERA

According to rumour, both Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert had
intimately placed tattoos. At that time, tattoos were usually placed where they could easily be covered by clothes. Queen Victoria had a tiger and python inked on her skin. What a badass! :)
A popular rumour is that Prince Albert was a fan of genital piercing as well. One of the most common male genital piercings, a ring through the tip of the penis, iseven named after him. It was supposed to enhance sexual pleasure for Queen Victoria.

IMAGE SOURCE

Edward VII, as Prince of Wales, had a Jerusalem Cross tattooed on his arm during a visit to Jerusalem in 1862. Twenty years later, his sons – Prince Eddy and Prince George, the future George V – both had dragons tattooed on their arms during a visit to Japan. Before returning home, they stopped in Jerusalem to be illustrated by the same artist who had tattooed their father.

IMAGE SOURCE

The beautiful Sissi, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, had an anchor tattooed on her shoulder (at the age of 51) on her trip to Greece. Her husband, Kaiser Franz Joseph I, was shocked at first, but the latter found it ''very original, and certainly not so terrible". The negative attitude of his father also did not prevent Crown Prince Rudolf from following his mother’s example and getting tattoo.

IMAGE SOURCE

The practice crossed the Atlantic and soon rich Americans were getting tattooed. Tattooing
was even encouraged among officers of the British army and navy.

I hope you enjoyed this interesting history facts!
Kisses, @mateakrnic :*