Head of a Man Wearing a Turban

Head of a Man Wearing a Turban

Thomas Frye

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1760, the pastel portraitist and porcelain manufacturer Thomas Frye published Twelve Mezzotinto Prints, from Designs in the Manner of Piazetta, Drawn from Nature and as Large as Life. Frye's evocative figures, although presumably based on living models, exceed the conventions of portraiture, and also function as character studies. The man shown here—dressed in the fashionable "Turkish" manner—turns with parted lips as if poised to speak, while raising the elegant fingers of one hand in a rhetorical gesture. His long blond eyelashes and smoothly rendered wrinkles and dimples are hallmarks of Frye's refined style.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Head of a Man Wearing a TurbanHead of a Man Wearing a TurbanHead of a Man Wearing a TurbanHead of a Man Wearing a TurbanHead of a Man Wearing a Turban

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.