The Observer

Date1760

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

MediumMezzotint engraving on laid paper

DimensionsOverall: 20 × 14 15/16in. (50.8 × 37.9cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1983-285

DescriptionIn the bottom right of the image is ".TF". Underneath is scratched "Thos. Frye Pictor Inv:t & Sculpt: Hatton Garden 1760".

Label TextAnglo-Irish artist Thomas Frye (ca. 1710-1762) is noteworthy for his command of the mezzotint medium, his use of dramatic lighting, and the unusual positions in which his sitters' heads are posed. Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) was a portrait painter famous for experiments with candlelit subjects and shadows and light. Impressed with Frye's work, Wright based a number of figures on Frye's work such as "The Observer."

Although mezzotint artists are usually known for their reproductive work, most of Anglo-Irish artist Thomas 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. This print was from the first series.

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.”

Thomas Frye was one of the most significant artists working in mezzotint engraving in the eighteenth-century. He was born outside Dublin around 1710, and moved to England at age twenty to work as a painter and engraver. He gained notoriety as the manager at the Bow Porcelain Factory, where he helped develop a recipe for bone china. After resigning his position at Bow, he returned to the medium of mezzotint. 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.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.