An Imaginary Visit to the Worldwide Museum of Phallic Art
Dear (erotica) art history travelers,
Perhaps you haven’t yet made the pilgrimage to the world’s only genuine penis museum—The Icelandic Phallological Museum. But worry not. You’re about to embark on an extraordinary tour through one of the most eclectic collections ever assembled, entirely devoted to His Majesty, The Phallus!
You’ll meet a vain, sensual (and hélas, famously frigid) French princess, discover the lucky phallic charms of Pompeii, Bhutan, and Naples. You’ll marvel at NSFW lipstick-as-dicks design, chuckle at penis-shaped billionaire spaceships, and uncover a treasure trove of art-world scandals—this journey dives deep (pun fully intended) into the visual and symbolic legacy of the penis. Ready to follow the trail of the trouser snake through history, myth, art, and design? Let’s begin.
Fig.1 Princess X (1909) by Constantin Brancusi. Marble with caen limestone base
Fig.2 Abstract sculpture C Brancusi Princess X 1909 at MoMA in New York 1957. Photographer unknown. (Instagram caption)
Fig.3 Bhutan Phallus and Dragon graffiti
Fig.4 Bhutanese Phallic Symbols as Protectors of Homes
Fig.5 Catherine the Great Empress Regnant of Russia from 1762 to 1796, X rated furniture collection replica
Fig.6 Bhutan -Thunderbolt to Scare Evil Eye. Phallus symbols depicted on houses.
Prelude: The Case of Princess X
Voilà, le phallus! Or to put it plainly: There goes the penis! But not just any erect male organ —this is about The penis, the one that has traveled through time and art history from prehistory to postmodernism and beyond.
In January 1920, while Dadaism and Surrealism were at their peak, Constantin Brâncuși’s sculpture Princesse X (1915–1916) was greeted before its debut at the Salon des Indépendants with the now-iconic exclamation, Voilà, le phallus! (possibly uttered by Picasso or Matisse). Previously rejected from the 1916 Salon d'Antin, the piece was twice excluded before being reinstated—thanks to Brâncuși’s circle of supporters, including Fernand Léger.
Princess X was both a stylized memory of an earlier marble form (reworked between 1909 and 1915) and an embodiment of a symbolic ideal: the eternal feminine? The androgynous? Or a woman transformed into a phallus, as perceived by scandalized Art Salon organizers?
Brâncuși’s Princess X was, in fact, a portrait of Princess Marie Bonaparte—a woman famed not only for her lineage and immense wealth, but also for her obsession with psychoanalysis, feminine orgasm, and her own frigidity. The sculpture took five years of experimentation and refinement by Brâncuși, Romania’s most iconic modernist sculptor and a darling of the French avant-garde.
“She had a beautiful bust, but ugly legs—and was terribly vain. She’d stare at herself in the mirror constantly, even during lunch,” Brâncuși once gossiped. When viewed out of context, Princess X undeniably resembles an erect penis. However, Brancusi’s stripped down to its very essence portrait - it was his rendering of a woman so consumed by vanity that she could not stop gazing at her own reflection, even during lunch with the artist.
Fig.7 Discourse on the worship of Priapus and its connection with the mystic theology of the ancients by Richard Payne Knight, republished by George Witt in 1865, Penis
Fig.8 Catherine the Great Empress Regnant of Russia from 1762 to 1796, phallic furniture collection replica
Fig.9 Discourse on the worship of Priapus and its connection with the mystic theology of the ancients by Richard Payne Knight, republished by George Witt in 1865, Winged penises
Fig.10 Erotic art of India "A man ejaculating, while holding a net for birds." Gouache painting, author unknown
Fig.11 Early 20th Century TOYEN Style Erotic Ink Drawing of Penis
Fig.12 Erotic art of India series "A woman riding on an enormous winged penis." Gouache painting, author unknown
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Click HERE for the ode to phallus in the art of Andrejs Majevskis
Sources: phallus.is/, centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/ROklOi0m, artblart.com/tag/medardo-rosso-madame-x/, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Br%C3%A2ncu%C8%99i, messynessychic.com/2018/07/12/princess-bonapartes-orgasmic-quest/, kreps.org/blog/the-phallus-in-ancient-greece-a-long-read/, wikiwand.com/en/articles/Phallus
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