If you're searching for the most expansive, durable, industrially operational scrotums in the art world, look no further than Utagawa Kuniyoshi's tanuki series, including Tanuki Fishing in the River and Tanuki in a Shower. 

The magical scrotums are an indication that these creatures are intermediaries between this world and those unseen. Trust in the existence of unseen worlds is not a superstition, at least not traditionally. Humans across history have used this concept to think about our ancestors and loved ones who have departed this world, finding reassurance in the faith that we will see them again in the next. The tanuki is a 'yokai,' a supernatural being or monster from the Japanese oral folklore tradition, although they are based on an actual animal whose Latin name is Nyctereutes procyonoides. They are also known as raccoon dogs, because though they resemble raccoons, but they are closer relatives to foxes.

These Kuniyoshi images, in the traditional Japanese woodblock print sizes of 'chûban,' (18 x 25 cm), and 'ôban,' (36 x 25 cm), suggest that the tanuki scrotums are only enormous when the tanukis use them in the service of some task or another, like as a fishing net. We don't seem to find images of tanuki in this series whose scrotums are, well, just dangling around storing testicles, nor do we see tanuki penises, which are, apparently, not at all relevant. This takes some adjusting to for those of us whose art world familiarity with absurdly proportioned reproductive systems is heavily colored by the Roman satyr images, which are penis-focused, not unlike the entire Roman architectural tradition, to which the United States pays homage with the Washington Monument and its many columned buildings. The tanuki also has a cousin in Celtic 'sheela na gig' carvings who, like the tanukis and their scrotums, spread their absurdly large vulva for positive, auspicious energy. In a related tradition, some scholars attest that the fixture of the horseshoe for good luck represents the vulva of a mare.

The generous number of artworks that make up Kuniyoshi's tanuki series also show them using their supernatural scrotums as boats, nets for catching birds, shopping bags and luggage, umbrellas, warm clothing, the roof of a fortune-teller's office, shop signs, billboards, barbells, catfish traps, sumo aprons, marketplace decor, drums for celebrating the new year, canvas for painting images of Daruma dolls, and imitating another form of yokai called 'tengu.' Of the Kuniyoshi tanukis I've seen, only two feature the tanuki scrotums relieved of their functional purposes, not doing anything: one image called Tanuki no kokintama, in which a freak show features a tanuki with an unusually small scrotum, and Tanuki no senkimochi, in which a tanuki has come down with a serious case of 'senki,' a condition which causes the scrotum, which takes up nearly the entire surface area of the image, to swell.