PORTUGAL — There was a time when a leisurely stroll through most Mediterranean towns and cities would include plenty of opportunities to view large and small phallic sculptures. After all, they symbolized prosperity, fertility, strength, and plenty – all of which were considered very good things at the time. Today it’s much more difficult to find a good ornamental penis – but a Portuguese husband and wife team are doing their best to keep the ancient art form alive at least a little bit longer.According to Reuters, although Francisco and Casilda Figueiredo still ship their goods throughout Europe, they are some of the last artisans who still create handcrafted ceramic penises.
The now 68- and 65-year-old couple has been molding and painting male reproductive organs for more than 30 years, but they believe the tradition may die with them.
“The days of the ceramics trade here are numbered,” Francisco foretells from his workshop in the Caldas da Rainha region approximately 60 miles north of Lisbon. “I see no possibility of survival. It will never be like it was in the past.”
While anyone with an appreciation for the male form might find this sad, there’s something even more tragic about the fate of the art, given that it is believed to have begun in Caldas da Rainha, when 19th century king Dom Luis requested that local potters consider creating items with more interest.
“Nobody knows exactly what started the tradition,” Francisco observes, “they say it was Dom Luis, but I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
While it might initially seem that prudery is to blame for the decline in ceramic penises, some believe it’s precisely the opposite that has rung the death knell. With erotic imagery more common in advertisements and daily living, the sight of a flesh-colored ceramic penis simply doesn’t have the evocative power that it once had.
Nonetheless, the couple creates penis shaped bottles, ceramic mugs with impudent penises poking up from the bottom or out from the sides, and ceramic soccer players with proudly jutting cocks poking out from beneath their national flags. When times were good, the couple could produce as many as 1,000 bottles in a month.
“There were many people making ceramics,” Francisco remembers, “but now, locally, there is just us. We exported to Germany, Canada, and France. Today, we just sell to visitors and local shops.”
