Washington, in uniform and lit by light falling into the room, stands at the center and holds out a paper to the president of the Continental Congress as delegates at a table watch. Two aides stand behind him, and beside them an empty chair draped in a cloak looks like a throne covered with a king's robe. Women and children look on at the right. The scene is December 23, 1783, in the Maryland State House in Annapolis, when George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, an act that established civilian authority over the military.

John Trumbull painted it between 1822 and 1824, the last of the four Rotunda paintings he made under his 1817 commission from Congress. Some figures, including James Madison and Martha Washington and her grandchildren, were not present at the real event, and Trumbull copied the chairs from his Declaration of Independence instead of the room's furniture. Finished in April 1824, the painting toured Boston, Providence, Hartford, Albany, Philadelphia and New York that year. It balances the Declaration of Independence, which also centers on the presentation of papers.

It hangs in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC.