Self-portrait of Thomas Frye

Date1760

Designed and engraved by Thomas Frye (ca. 1710 - 1762)

MediumBlack & white mezzotint engraving on laid paper

DimensionsOverall: H. 20 5/8"; W: 14 7/8"; Plate H: 19 7/8"; W: 13 3/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1983-283

DescriptionAt the bottom left of image is scraped "TF", in center is "Ipse." Underneath in dotted letters is "T Frye Pictor Invt. & sculp Hatton Garden 1760."
Label TextThis is a self portrait by Anglo-Irish artist Thomas Frye ( ca. 1710-1762) who was one of the most significant artists working in mezzotint engraving in the eighteenth-century. In this self-portrait, he wears a wig, plain coat with a short sleeve and ruffled shirt. Before him is a drawing board with paper, his right hand leans upon it and holds a crayon. His left hand rests on the side of his face.

Frye was born around 1710 near Dublin, Ireland. By young adulthood, he was living in London, where he achieved some reputation as a portrait painter and miniaturist. In 1744, Frye with three other gentlemen founded the Bow China Manufactory at Essex where he and his colleague Edward Heyleyn took out a patent for making true porcelain “equal to, if not exceeding in goodness and beauty, china of porcelain ware imported from abroad." In 1749/50 he took out a second patent in which he specified the use of white ash of calcined bones as the chief ingredient in his porcelain recipe. This important patented innovation was a precursor to what became the standard in English commercial porcelain. After managing the factory for fifteen years, Frye retired in 1759 due to ill health, presumably from too much time around clay dust and furnaces. In 1760, he started producing mezzotint portraits, for which he is best known today. Frye’s mastery of this this engraving process is displayed through his ability to achieve dramatic variation in tone, characterized by velvety depths and luminous highlights, that render his subjects both sensitive and shockingly life-like.

Although mezzotint artists are usually known for their reproductive work, most of Frye’s prints are original and based on his own black-and-white chalk drawings. Between 1760 and 1762, Frye published two series of life-size portraits. He advertised plans for the first set of twelve engravings in the London Chronicle, June 3-5, 1760, as “drawn from Nature and large as Life from Designs in the manner of Piazzeta of Rome.” Frye may have based on engravings on portrait studies drawn from largely unknown models. Or it is possible that acquaintances and family members may have sat for the renderings. In contrast, the six portraits of ladies in be based on archetypes he developed after attending the theater. Frye frequented the theater specifically to sketch royalty and leading women of British society who attended. This self-portrait is the final print of the first series. Frye devoted most of his time to the print medium until his death in 1762. An epitaph several years later read, “No one was more happy in delineating the human Countenance: He had the Correctness of Van-Dyck, and the Colouring of Rubens."

Frye marketed his prints, which were expensive and published in limited editions, quite extensively in the London press. Prints by Frye were advertised in the Virginia Gazette on September 17, 1771 (Purdie & Dixon) for sale in Williamsburg. The advertisement reads:
“To be Sold any Time betwixt this and October Court for ready Money, Sundry fine prints done by Mr. Fry[e] and some Election Pieces by Hogarth, the Property of a Genleman[sic] gone to England. They may be seen at any Time on applying to Benjamin Bucktrout.”
InscribedAt the bottom left of image is scraped "TF", in center is "Ipse." Underneath in dotted letters is "T Frye Pictor Invt. & Sculp Hatton Garden 1760."