Thomas Frye
Irish, 1710-1762
Young Man with a Candle, from Life-Sized Heads
INV-1294
Thomas Frye
Irish, 1710-17621760
Young Man with a Candle, from Life-Sized Heads
Thomas Frye Irish, 1710-1762 →mezzotintprint
Date
1760
Medium
Mezzotint in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 47.2 × 35.1 cm (18 5/8 × 13 7/8 in.); Sheet: 50.5 × 36 cm (19 15/16 × 14 3/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Features gone ashen and eyes bulging, Thomas Frye’s anonymous figure brandishes a candlestick. The embodiment of Romantic terror, he may very well have seen a ghost or encountered other scientifically inexplicable horrors. Backed against an unforgiving and ancient stone wall, he suggests a tragic hero like the one in the first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole’s soon-to-be published Castle of Otranto. Joseph Wright of Derby copied some of Frye’s heads for his Experiment with the Air Pump; this frightened youth could have inspired the wild-haired philosopher at center stage.
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