Zeus2.0001_Greenough

Horatio Greenough, "George Washington (as Phidian Zeus)" 1840, now in the Smithsonian' National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.

This image of Washington — the statesman as a figure of Zeus — is midway on a continuum between Phidias and Antonio Brumidi's "Apotheosis of Washington". J.-A.-D. Ingres' "Jupiter and Thetis" (1811) is also part of this rich iconographic tradition. — Greenough goes further, perhaps, than American tastes sometime allow and glorifies Washington by association with the classical sky-god.

Phidias crafted in the 5th Century BC the colossal chryselephantine image of Zeus for his sanctuary at Elis.

Greenough's Washington extends sheathed sword so that the nation may take it by the hilt and he points to heaven, whence his authority derives.

Greenough projects Washington in that moment of Hesiod's Theogony (881-85) when Zeus has "completed the work and settled the matter of privileges with the Titans by force." That is the moment when Zeus can rule as "king and lord ... and allot them privileges satisfactorily."