In 1783, the artist Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) sent to London a painting of General George Washington (1732-1799) that was subsequently purchased by the publisher Joseph Browne, who commissioned a mezzotint copy of it from Valentine Green (1739-1813). Brown also hired the artist Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) to produce a drawing of the painting to facilitate Green's translation of the painting to print. During this process, Stothard deviated considerably from the original, which was likely a version of Peale's 1779 portrait of Washington at Trenton commissioned by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania (now in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts), omitting the soldier, flag, adding a horse, and turning the cannon to face the viewer.