Career
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, Ireland, in 1710.
In his youth he went to London to practice as an artist.
His earliest work are a pair of pastel portraits of boys, one dated 1734 (Earl of Iveagh). Foreign the Worshipful Company of Saddlers he painted a full-length portrait of Frederick, Prince of Wales (1736, destroyed 1940), which he engraved in mezzotint and published in 1741.
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, by which he is most remembered. He died of consumption on 2 April 1762 and was buried at Hornsey.
One of them, who married a Mr Willcox, was employed by Josiah Wedgwood at the Wedgwood Etruria works in painting figure-subjects from 1759 to 1776, the year of her death.