Horatio Greenough is best known in Washington, DC, for his controversial sculptures titled "George Washington" and "The Rescue," which stood for a time inside the US Capitol building. Both were commissioned from Greenough by Congress, making him one of the first American sculptors to receive a major commission from the federal government. He created both sculptures at his studio in Florence, Italy. 

Greenough was born into a wealthy family in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to attending private schools, he studied art informally with local artists and artisans, focusing on woodcarving and sculpture. He attended Harvard, where he studied classics, philosophy, anatomy, Italian, and French. After graduation, he travelled to Rome, where he stayed for two years, creating and studying art at the French Academy there.

In 1827, he returned to Boston. He spent a year there creating head and shoulders sculptural portraits of prominent locals, including President John Quincy Adams. He moved to Florence, Italy, in 1828, and would remain there for most of his life. He studied with Italian sculptors who based their works on Renaissance sculpture; while this style was popular in Europe it was less well received by the American public.

In 1832, he was commissioned by the United States Congress to create a statue of Washington for the Capitol. Greenough modeled his Washington after a statue of Zeus, dressing the American general and president in a toga. Greenough's statue of Washington arrived in Washington in 1842 and was immediately subject to criticism. Other sculptures executed by Greenough for Congress, such as the Rescue, were also disliked by the public and members of Congress. Nonetheless, he was well received by other artists, and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1843.

Greenough married Louisa Gore, also from Boston, in 1837. They had one child, a son. In 1851, the family left Italy due to an increasingly volatile political situation, returning to Boston. Greenough died the following year after a lingering illness.