DIXON, JOHN (d. 1715), miniature and crayon painter, a pupil of Sir Peter Lely, was appointed by William III ‘keeper of the king's picture closet,’ and in 1698 was concerned in a bubble lottery. The whole sum was to be 40,000l., divided into 1,214 prizes, the highest prize in money 3,000l., the lowest 20l. This affair turned out a great failure, and Dixon, falling in debt, removed for security from St. Martin's Lane, where he lived, to King's Bench Walk in the Temple, and afterwards to a small estate at Thwaite, near Bungay in Suffolk, where he died in 1715. The two following pictures by Dixon were sold at the Strawberry Hill sale: a miniature of the Lady Anne Clifford, daughter and heiress to George, earl of Cumberland, first married to Richard, earl of Dorset, and afterwards to Philip, earl of Pembroke and Montgomery; and a portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria, with a landscape background.
[Walpole's Anecd. of Painting in England (1862), ii. 535.]
DIXON, JOHN (1740?–1780?), mezzotint engraver, was born in Dublin about 1740. He received his art training in the Dublin Society's schools, of which Robert West was then master, and began life as an engraver of silver plate. Having, however, run through a small fortune left to him by his father, he removed to London about 1765, and in the following year became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, with whom he exhibited until 1775. His portraits of Dr. Carmichael, bishop of Meath (afterwards archbishop of Dublin), after Ennis, and of Nicholas, viscount Taaffe, after Robert Hunter, appear to have been engraved before he left Ireland; but soon after his arrival in London he became known by his full-length portrait of Garrick in the character of ‘Richard III,’ after Dance. Some of his best plates were executed between 1770 and 1775; they are well drawn, brilliant, and powerful, but occasionally rather black. Dixon was a handsome man, and married a young lady with an ample fortune, whereupon he retired to Ranelagh, and thenceforward followed his profession merely for recreation. He afterwards removed to Kensington, where he died about 1780.
Dixon's best engravings are after the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and include full-length portraits of Mary, duchess of Ancaster, and Mrs. Blake as ‘Juno,’ and others of William, duke of Leinster, Henry, tenth earl of Pembroke, Elizabeth, countess of Pembroke, and her son, the Misses Crewe, Charles Townshend, chancellor of the exchequer, William Robertson, D.D., Nelly O'Brien, and Miss Davidson, a young lady whose death in 1767 caused her parents so much grief that they are said to have destroyed the plate and all the impressions they could obtain. Besides the portraits above mentioned, Dixon engraved a group of David Garrick as ‘Abel Drugger,’ with Burton and Palmer as ‘Subtle’ and ‘Face,’ after Zoffany; a full-length of Garrick alone, from the same picture; a half-length of Garrick, after Hudson; William, earl of Ancrum, afterwards fifth marquis of Lothian, full-length, after Gilpin and Cosway; Henry, third duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, and Joshua Kirby, after Gainsborough; Rev. James Hervey, after J. Williams; Sir William Browne, M.D., after Hudson; ‘Betty,’ a pretty girl who sold fruit near the Royal Exchange, after Falconet; and William Beckford, both full-length and three-quarter reversed, after a drawing by himself. Other plates by him are ‘The Frame Maker,’ after Rembrandt; ‘The Flute Player,’ after Frans Hals; and ‘The Arrest’ and ‘The Oracle,’ after his own designs. Forty plates by him are described by Mr. Chaloner Smith.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878; Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits, 1878–83, i. 203–18; Catalogues of the Exhibition of the Society of Artists, 1766–1775.]
DIXON, JOSEPH, D.D. (1806–1866), Irish catholic prelate, born at Cole Island, near Dungannon, county Tyrone, on 2 Feb. 1806, entered the Royal College of St. Patrick, Maynooth, in 1822. He was ordained priest in 1829, and after holding the office of dean in the college for five years was promoted to the professorship of Sacred Scripture and Hebrew. On the translation of Dr. Paul Cullen [q. v.] to Dublin he was chosen to succeed him as archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland. His appointment by propaganda, 28 Sept. 1852, was confirmed by the pope on 3 Oct., and he was consecrated on 21 Nov. He died at Armagh on 29 April 1866.
He was the author of: 1. ‘A General Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures in a series of dissertations, critical, hermeneutical, and historical,’ 2 vols. 8vo, Dublin, 1852. A review by Cardinal Wiseman of this learned work appeared in 1853 under the title of ‘The Catholic Doctrine of the Use of the Bible.’ 2. ‘The Blessed Cornelius, or some Tidings of an Archbishop of Armagh who went to Rome in the twelfth century and did not return [here identified with Saint Concord], prefaced by a brief narrative of a visit to Rome, &c., in 1854,’ Dublin, 1855, 8vo.
