In consequence, Trumbull received a July, 1790, commission from the corporation for the City of New York, led by Mayor Richard Varick, to paint the president's portrait.

[1][2] Rather than beginning anew, Trumbull enormously scaled up the prior work, enlarging it from roughly 30" by 20" to nearly four times the size, 108" by 72".

In composition and general character the two paintings are substantially the same, with only the middle background as seen through Washington's horse's legs changed, from a September 14, 1782 review of Continental Army troops he had staged for departing French commander-in-chief General Rochambeau to an idealized vision of Evacuation Day, Washington's return to New York City upon the British departure on November 25, 1783.

[3][4] Trumbull in a letter to his mentor, the painter Benjamin West, on August 30, 1790 wrote: I have several small portraits of the President ... one in particular which I have done for Mrs. Washington a full length about 20 Inches hight ... is thought very like—& I have Been tempted to disobey one of your injunctions & to attempt a large Portrait of him for this City which I am now finishing—the figure is near seven feet high compos'd with a Horse, & the back ground the evacuation of this Place by the British at the Peace:—the Harbour & Fleet with a Part of the fortifications & Ruins of the Town:—How I have succeeded I hardly dare judge:—the World have approved the resemblance, it is to Hang in the most elegant Room in America & in a very perfect light.The pose and general composition are virtual of copies of Washington at Verplanck's Point painted earlier in 1790, but instead of the background seen through the horse's legs being a romanticized depiction of a review of Continental Army troops at their encampment at New York's Verplanck's Point[a] Washington had staged for departing French commander-in-chief General Rochambeau on September 14, 1782,[b] it is an idealized vision of Evacuation Day, Washington's return to New York City upon the British departure on November 25, 1783.

In 1899, Samuel Arlent Edwards engraved a version entitled Washington and noted as "From the painting by J. Trumbull in the City Hall, New York".