Veracruz Stone Yoke

Jay C. Leff, Uniontown, Pennsylvania

Sotheby’s, New York, Important Pre-Columbian Art, May 12 and 13, 1983, lot 106, consigned by the above

European Private Collection, acquired at the above auction

Thence by descent

Pittsburgh, The Carnegie Institute, Exotic Art from Ancient and Primitive Civilizations: Collection of Jay C. Leff, October 15, 1959 –January 3, 1960

New York, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ancient Art of Latin America: From the Collection of Jay C. Leff, November 22, 1966 – March 5, 1967

Allentown, The Allentown Art Museum, Pre-Columbian Art of Mesoamerica: From the Collection of Jay C. Leff, February 13 – April 2, 1972

Huntington, Huntington Galleries, Ancient Art of Middle America: Selections from the Jay C. Leff Collection, February 17 – June 9, 1974

Dallas, The Dallas Museum of Art, 1991 - 2017, on loan

Gordon B. Washburn, Exotic Art from Ancient and Primitive Civilizations: Collection of Jay C. Leff, Pittsburgh, 1959, p. 76, no. 493

Elizabeth K. Easby, Ancient Art of Latin America: From the Collection of Jay C. Leff, New York, 1966, no. 311

Michael Kan, Pre-Columbian Art of Mesoamerica: From the Collection of Jay C. Leff, Allentown, 1972, no. 63, illus.

Katheryn M. Linduff, Ancient Art of Middle America: Selections from the Jay C. Leff Collection, Huntington, 1974, p. 40, no. 61, illus.

The massive sculpture is one of the more abstract versions of these important ceremonial trophies. It combines the important and dominant elements of honored avatars of serpent and saurian. The front is carved with large slightly tapered teeth in a tight sequence surmounted by elongated quadripartite forms, each side shows the stylized tightly bent legs and wide foot. Scrolls and a segmented band are fluidly arranged on the top side of the yoke. Each end is carved with a delicate geometric form. Remains of red pigment are visible on the interior and incised areas of the top; it is carved in a deep gray-green stone with a lustrous burnish. 

The ballgame and use of yokes

The ballgame is one of the most defining features of ancient Mesoamerica with the carved yokes, hachas, and palma sculptures providing the link to this ceremonial game. Over 1500 ballcourts are known to exist in various parts of Mexico and Guatemala, with the most famous ballcourts and relief panels at El Tajin. The ballgame had religious and cosmic significance as relayed in the sacred Maya epic of the Popul Vuh. The ballcourt is considered the entrance to the Underworld where the Hero Twins are summoned to play the Lords of the Underworld. The defeat and rebirth of the Twins is reimagined as the daily cycle of the sun and moon. The ballgame itself was a metaphor for constant interplay of life and death; the cosmic cycle of day and night.

It is widely accepted that stone yokes were impossible to wear during a game and thus were the ceremonial counterpart of the perishable wood or leather protective belts. Yokes are frequently carved as toads who deftly transverse levels of the earth; thus the intended wearer of a yoke was placed at the nexus of the two worlds. The stone yoke is a symbol of authority and a vehicle empowering the wearer in the ‘symbolic significance of transformation”.¹ A yoke entitled one to perform rites and ceremonies. Yokes were also buried in tombs with the other accouterments of hachas and palmas, signifying their importance for success and stature in the afterlife.

¹ Edwin M. Shook, Elayne Marquis, Secrets in Stone, Yokes, Hachas and Palmas from Southern Mesoamerica, Philadelphia, 1996, p. 6