Roberta Smith reviewed “Set in Stone: The Medieval Face in Sculpture” in the New York Times today. The exhibit is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and will run until February 18, 2007.

From the review:

“Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture” is one of those revelatory close-ups at which the Metropolitan Museum of Art excels. The show brings together similar objects that are not so much little seen as little noticed, and proceeds to make you notice them, big time. It touches on history, connoisseurship, artistic discovery and the latest attributions and research techniques, the latter involving the geochemical matching of limestone isotopes. And the primary vehicle for this excursion is that most profoundly familiar yet persistently engaging motif, the human face.

“The world glimpsed in this show is Europe in the 12th, 13th and early 14th centuries, when the Romanesque style was giving way to Gothic, as reflected in about 70 heads and related objects, in carved stone, wood and metal. These have been assembled by Charles T. Little and Wendy A. Stein, who are, respectively, curator and research associate in the Met’s department of medieval art and the Cloisters. Mr. Little has also edited the show’s excellent catalog.

Read the rest of the review here.