STIFF COMPETITION. Unsigned and undated, but end of the Edo period [ca. 1860 or later]. Watercolor on paper scroll, aprox 13 ft x 15 inches [400 x 38 cm]. With over 50 distinct drawings of episodes in a phallus-measuring competition. Unmounted, but with traces of original rods adhered to either end. Some fraying to edges; a few old tape repairs to verso; a few seams repaired; dampstain throughout the scroll. Old pencil notation on verso at one end, as well as number stamped in red. A captivating example of this trope in Edo art, narrating a well-organized phallus measuring competition replete with judges and rulers. Echoing Buddhist / Shinto admonitions against lust, the penis is here transformed from a sex symbol into absurd physical comedy. The present scroll contains visual references to the oldest extant example, Kachi-e emaki (15th century), preserved in the Mitsui Memorial Museum in Tokyo. The object belongs to the tradition of Emakimono (???, ‘picture scroll’), narrating a story from left to right through a series of illustrative scenes. Here, the initial scene shows a surging crowd that has gathered around a screen being held at bay by two guards with bows. Further on, some competitors sit waiting by a table, while others are being measured with what appears to be a rope and by a judge with a ruler. The scroll ends with an overweight competitor with a fan sitting with other men by a striped screen. Details such as this and the unusual shape of a guard's head, the stripes on the screens, the official with the ruler and the overall position of the men in each scene, duplicate that of the Mitsui Museum handscroll, though with less proficiency of the brush. Sexual intercourse is never suggested, and no women are involved in any of the scenes; furthermore, none of the competitors seems to be enjoying the activity at hand. The deeper significance of the phallic competition in Japanese art history has been explored in full by, for example, Akiko Yano (“Historiography of the ‘Phallic Contest’ Handscroll in Japanese Art” Japan Review, No. 26 (2013), pp. 59-82 – with reference to the Mitsui Memorial Museum example among others).