[2] Horatio Greenough based Enthroned Washington on Phidias' Statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World which was destroyed in Late Antiquity.

His left palm and forearm cradle a sheathed sword, hilt forward, symbolizing Washington turning over power to the people at the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War.

[4] When the marble statue arrived in Washington, D.C. from Italy on July 31, 1841 it immediately generated controversy and criticism on its installation in the rotunda in December 1841.

Because of the sculpture's weight and the dim light inside the rotunda, the statue was relocated to a pedestal on the east lawn of the Capitol in 1843.

The statue appears near the beginning of the 2013 first-person shooter, BioShock Infinite, set in an alternate 1912 where Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson are worshiped by the inhabitants of the floating city of Columbia.