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Welcome to Wisden's Secret
Please see Contents or Overview to access other areas of research on this site or click the link below
Other areas include
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1) The Original Source Manuscript to the 1st edition of Wisden's Almanack
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2) Astonishing Results of research assembled under the title
"The Unknown Jane Austen Hidden in Plain Sight "
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3) The Discovery of a Unique Etching by Rembrandt
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4) A unique? set of beautiful, finely coloured aquatints to illustrate the works of Byron
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R I X O N S D E C A L S
3 of the decals produced from the Rixon Family album reproduced below.
They can be bought on ebay at Rixonsdecals
Rixons Decals are vinyl decals that have been sourced and created mainly from a beautifully illustrated Victorian Commonplace Album owned by a young lady named Mary Ann Rixon and before her "Aunt Gertrude Miller" As one can see from the worn condition of its elaborately tooled boards and loose pages the album has been viewed many many times.
There are some fine contributions to this album by named members of her family including William Augustus Rixon a listed artist who included in his circle of artistic connections J. A. M. Whistler . Clearly a talented family. Included in this album are 3 etchings with a note underneath stating who they were by. There are also many unsigned works that are most likely by a Rixon family member together with 2 not so good "works" by Charlie Homer and 4 fragile Chinese rice paper paintings. Finally there are 2 rather charming pencil drawings with watercolour and .
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The album was bought by me at an auction about 15 years ago. Although most things I buy are intended to be for sale I have never tried to sell this album. It was always in my mind to do something in the way of reprinting some of these beautiful illustrations.
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The rather battered and worn front boards and inside cover and flyleaf.
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Fast forward to June 2024 and I bought a Man 7.5 ton truck that I wanted to convert into a motor home. Before a motorhome can be listed on the logbook as a motorhome certain changes have to be made. These changes include the emplacement of decals. I could find few decals that I actually much less wanted to buy. I thought the watercolours in this album were far superior. So
A few months after purchasing the truck I had a number of decals specially made by a printer friend and fitted to promote my research. However there is a lot of space left over so I looked into fitting easily obtainable decalls and what was obtainable. I liked few that I saw and thought to myself that the illustrations in this Victorian Album were at least as good and actually I preferred them.. So I looked into the matter with my printer friend and a selection of these illustrations have been scanned to 2500 dpi, printed off and placed on the truck. ​
Perhaps I am mistaken but I thought the decalls themselves looked fantastic and that other people might also be interested in having some so more have been printed off and are now for sale on ebay.
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The whole album has been photographed and uploaded to this website in page sequential order, together with a few notes where necessary and is now available below to view by those who would like to see it .
*See photos at the end for decals on truck
In the illustration below top right hand corner is one of 4 Chinese watercolours on rice paoper
The illustrations above and below are a mixture of pencil and watercolour
The illustration below of shells to the right is Chinese and has been painted on rice paper. Beautiful as these illustrations invariably are they are sadly very fragile
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The illustration above is actually an engraving
The illustration below is pencil and watercolour and arguably my favourite
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The etching below is the only art work stated as definitely by listed artist William Augustus Rixon
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The illustration below is not by a member of the Rixon family but by one Charlie Homer ​​
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The illustration below is a watercolour copy of an uncoloured illustration by Lt. Col Robert Batty and title Oporto The Mouth of the Douro from Maserrelos is from Select Views of the Principal Cities of Europe
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The Illustration below is a watercolour copy of "A Storm" a mezzotint by Henry Dawe after Phillp De Loutherbourg "A Storm " Some may see a little of J M W Turner in this illustration and he engravved a number of works after Turner most notably for Liber Studiorum .
Artists copy other artists on all the time but copying a mezzotint is very unusual. and therefore worthy of comment
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Below A pencil sketch of an at the moment an unknown lighthouse
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Below another Chinese watercolour painting whose fragility is more obvious to see in this illustration. ​
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A charming pencil sketch whose location is unknown
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Below is a well executed watercolour of the bridge La Puente Nuevo in Ronda Spain
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Below an etching by "Aunt Emily Rixon". I have no idea what else Emily Rixon might have produced artistically but clearly she has some ability
Another illustration by Charlie Homer
Illus. Below I initially thought that this was a chromlithograph on card that had been cut out but under the loupe it can clearly be seen that it is a watercolour on card that has then been cut out
Above is a pencil illustration of Napoleon's tomb on the island of St. Helena. The details re Duke of Montrose appear to be incorrect. No Duke of Montrose was ever Chancellor of the Exchequer. Its probable she means the fourth Duke who was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. She might mean the third Duke who was Vice President of the Board of Trade
Below is the last and largest of the Chinese watercolours on rice paper and this one is in a very poor state
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The above vignette is signed A.W.R. and Mary Ann Rixon states that it was her father who produced this. Another talented member of the Rixon family. There are several unsigned and very finely executed bouquets and sprigs of flowers. Whilst we dont know who did them A.W.R. certainly had the talent
Above is another example of a watercolour painted on card and the outline has been cut out.
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Above are illustrations by Mary Ann Miller nee Rixon herself. Another talented individual from the Rixon family
