Powers did, in fact, become one of the most famous sculptors in America and Europe in the mid 19th century through the success of such "ideal" works as his celebrated Greek Slave and the veracity of his naturalistic busts, such as the one of President Andrew Jackson. Powers left Ohio to spend 1835 - 1837 in the East, mainly in Washington, modelling busts of national leaders there, and also in Boston, Massachusetts, where he no doubt again admired the copy of Houdon's bust of Washington at the Athenaeum. Houdon's image of Washington had been modelled from life when the famous French sculptor visited Mount Vernon in 1785. Powers left America in 1837 to settle permanently in Florence, Italy, where success as a portraitist came quickly.

Powers began to work up his own portrait of Washington the year after he arrived in Italy, using Houdon's bust as his model. He may have borrowed the copy owned by his friend Horatio Greenough (1805 - 1852), who had used it as the basis for his colossal marble image of Washington (1832 - 1841), commissioned by Congress for the Rotunda of the new United States Capitol. Powers willingly declared his admiration for Houdon's image at about the time he was completing his own portrait in 1844, saying that in Houdon's characterization, "we see not only the highest degree of goodness and benevolence, but all the elements of the most grand and lofty character....There is no head among all the ancients so grand and so noble...." To the elegant head, Powers added a toga draped about the shoulders and chest, the folds of which are arranged in a superbly simplified composition.

Powers' bust of Washington proved to be very popular. He received his first order for a marble version in 1844. Marble was the preferred medium of the lingering neoclassical taste, just as a classical toga was preferred to contemporary dress, for it endowed the subject with the senatorial virtues of Republican Rome. It has been estimated that the professional carvers employed in Powers' studio produced more than thirty marble copies from his original. Each of the known examples is nearly identical to the one owned by the Department of State.