Definition
Frontispiece
A frontispiece is an illustration facing the title page, on the verso opposite. It is the one image many otherwise text-only books carry.
The position is the definition: an image anywhere else in the front matter is a plate, not a frontispiece. Traditionally it was a portrait of the author or a scene from the work, printed on the back of the half-title. Two practical notes for print-on-demand: the image must clear the gutter of a facing spread, and a full-bleed frontispiece has to be built with bleed on all outer edges or it will be trimmed with a white sliver.
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