Young Man with a Candle, from Life-Sized Heads
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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026
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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG
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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