Washington stands full-length in a blue coat with buff facings and a blue sash, one hand on his hip holding his hat and the other resting on a cannon. A bare tree and a wide river valley fall away behind him under a darkening sky, a young aide and a horse's head appear at the right, and flags lie piled at the lower right. On January 18, 1779, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania commissioned a portrait of Washington for its Council Chamber and chose Charles Willson Peale, who traveled to the Princeton and Trenton battlefields in February to sketch the background. The Met's catalogue says that, unlike the other versions, which show the aftermath of the Battle of Princeton, this one shows Washington after the Battle of Trenton, the turning point of the war.

The original full-length portrait is at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Peale made many copies, and this one, dated about 1779–81, came to the Met in 1897 as a gift of Collis P. Huntington. It is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.