Annie Dixon by Louisa Anne Beresford, Marchioness of Waterford (1818–1891), © National Portrait Gallery, London. Watercolour and pencil, size: 3 3/8 in. x 5 7/8 in. (87 mm x 150 mm), and dated 12 October 1887. This is in a sketch-book given by Anne Horatia (née Richmond), Lady Piper, in 1994. Reference Collection NPG D23146(15), reproduced here by kind permission of the gallery. Click on the image to enlarge it. Commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee.
Miss Dixon was an accomplished artist too — a miniaturist. Louisa wrote to a friend:
I have a charming person here, Miss Dixon, a miniature painter and a most delightful companion — honest and independent, with great agreeability. Her works are admirable — children especially. Did you see the Princess Beatrice at the Exhibition this year by her? — it was like a little Velasquez. [Hare III: 286]
She has shown Annie Dixon, neat and intent, perhaps looking at a sketch-book, perhaps even one of Louisa's own.
The two women had evidently known each other for a very long time: Louisa's sister Lady Canning, who died in 1861, had been especially fond of Miss Dixon's "beautiful miniature" of Louisa "on a gold ground," which was sent out to her in Calcutta, and which she always kept "close by her side" (Hare III: 121).
Bibliography
Hare, Augustus J. C. The Story of Two Noble Lives, Being Memorials of Charlotte, Countess Canning, and Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford. Vol. III. London: George Allen, 1893. Internet Archive. Contributed by Harvard University. Web. 24 August 2015.
Last modified 18 June 2020