Thomas Frye
Encyclopedia
Mezzotint
Mezzotint is a printmaking process of the intaglio family, technically a drypoint method. It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple...
engravings, was also the patentee of the Bow porcelain factory
Bow porcelain factory
The Bow porcelain factory was an emulative rival of the Chelsea porcelain factory in the manufacture of early soft-paste porcelain in Great Britain...
, London, and claimed in his epitaph to be "the inventor and first manufacturer of porcelain in England," though his rivals at the Chelsea porcelain factory
Chelsea porcelain factory
The Chelsea porcelain manufactory is the first important porcelain manufactory in England; its earliest soft-paste porcelain, aimed at the aristocratic market—cream jugs in the form of two seated goats—are dated 1745...
seem to have preceded him in bringing wares to market. The Bow porcelain works did not long survive Frye's death; their final auctions took place in May 1764.
Thomas Frye was born at Edenderry, County Offaly
County Offaly
County Offaly is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Midlands Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the ancient Kingdom of Uí Failghe and was formerly known as King's County until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. Offaly County Council is...
, Ireland, in 1710; in his youth he went to London to practice as an artist. His earliest work are a pair of pastel
Pastel
Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation....
portraits of boys, one dated 1734 (Earl of Iveagh). For the Worshipful Company of Saddlers
Worshipful Company of Saddlers
The Worshipful Company of Saddlers is one of the most ancient of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Guild of Saddlers, the Company's predecessor, is thought to have been an Anglo-Saxon Craft Guild – it certainly existed at some point in the eleventh century. The Guild became a Company...
he painted a full-length portrait of Frederick, Prince of Wales
Frederick, Prince of Wales
Frederick, Prince of Wales was a member of the House of Hanover and therefore of the Hanoverian and later British Royal Family, the eldest son of George II and father of George III, as well as the great-grandfather of Queen Victoria...
(1736, destroyed 1940), which he engraved in mezzotint and published in 1741. With his silent partner, a London merchant Edward Heylyn
Edward Heylyn
Edward Heylyn was a merchant and entrepreneur who was one of the founders of the Bow porcelain factory.The Heylyn family originally came from North Wales. Heylyn was the third son of John Heylyn, a saddler of London who is said to have made a fortune supplying saddles for the Duke of Marlborough’s...
, he took out a patent on kaolin to be imported from the English colony of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
in November 1745, and became manager of the Bow factory from its obscure beginnings in the 1740s. He retired to Wales in 1759 for the sake of his lungs, but soon returned to London and resumed his occupation as an engraver, publishing the series of life-size fancy portraits in mezzotint
Mezzotint
Mezzotint is a printmaking process of the intaglio family, technically a drypoint method. It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple...
, by which he is most remembered. He died of consumption on 2 April 1762.
Frye had five children; his two daughters assisted him in painting porcelain at Bow until their marriages. One of them, who married a Mr. Willcox, was employed by Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family...
at the Wedgwood
Wedgwood
Wedgwood, strictly speaking Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a pottery firm owned by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity company based in New York City, USA. Wedgwood was founded on May 1, 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood and in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an...
Etruria works in painting figure-subjects from 1759 to 1776, the year of her death.
External links
- 'Industries: Pottery: Bow porcelain', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2: General; Ashford, East Bedfont with Hatton, Feltham, Hampton with Hampton Wick, Hanworth, Laleham, Littleton (1911), pp. 146–50. Date accessed: 17 May 2007.
- Thomas Frye on-line
- Drawn From Nature and as Large As Life':Thomas Frye's Fancy Heads, exhibition 2006-07 National Portrait Gallery (Press release)