Head of a woman

Frye appears to have ignored the convention of keeping a polite distance between the artist and sitter. His mezzotints of life-size heads are remarkable for their use of close-up viewpoint, large scale, dramatic lighting. They are also unusual for their time being both executed and designed by the same hand. The painter, Joseph Wright of Derby, was so impressed with Frye's prints that he based a number of the figures in his paintings on them.