American Furniture, Folk & Decorative Arts

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From a wealthy Boston family, Horatio Greenough traveled to Italy to study art upon graduation from Harvard and remained there for all but three years of his short life. He was the first American sculptor to achieve International recognition. Inspired by ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, Greenough's Washingtons have the short hair, blank eyes, and idealized pose of antiquity- bare-chested or with a draped shoulder. A possibly unique bust of a fully-draped Washington was sold at Freeman's, April 30, 2019, as lot 91.

In 1832, Greenough was commissioned by the United States to create a statue of George Washington. He created a colossal seated figure of the first president modeled after a fifth century BC statue of Zeus. Related busts of Washington by Greenough are found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Andalusia Foundation; and the United States Naval Academy.