Florence Baird Smith, née De Quincey (c.1828–1903), Daughter of Thomas De Quincey

William Blake Richmond painted Florence Baird Smith, daughter of the celebrated opium-eating essayist Thomas De Quincey, in 1886. The sitter's notable parentage gives the portrait a literary dimension — De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater had made him a legendary, controversial figure in Victorian literary culture, and his daughter's portrait held at Dove Cottage, the Wordsworth museum near Grasmere, connects it to the Lake Poets circle in which De Quincey had moved. Richmond was a classically trained painter with strong ties to the Aesthetic Movement, and his portraits of women carry a dignified, contemplative quality.

Richmond renders the sitter with smooth, carefully blended paint that gives the skin tones a porcelain delicacy. The composition is simple and frontal, allowing the sitter's character to register through expression rather than elaborate setting. Drapery is handled with attention to fall and fabric weight, reflecting his academic training.