White House adds a George Washington statue to the Rose Garden
WASHINGTON — The White House added a large statue of George Washington to the Rose Garden this week at the specific request of President Donald Trump, according to a federal official and a White House official.
The bronze statue, which is owned by the National Park Service, was moved from the Washington Monument to its new location during the government shutdown.
The 1992 statue is a reproduction made from a cast of the original white marble statue that resides in the Virginia State Capitol, according to the White House official. The original marble statue was made by French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon and is believed to be the only one in Washington made from a living mask.
The bronze version was on view to the public until recently, with approximately 250,000 people visiting the Washington Monument each year. It was installed during a renovation in the late 1990s.
The statue has been prepared for outdoor life and sits on the other side of the reimagined Rose Garden patio.
National Park Service conservators will monitor and treat the statue, the federal official said. There is concern that exposure may change the color, which is now a rich bronze. Oxidation can cause a green patina. Experts say the Statue of Liberty was once the same color, but time and exposure produced its greenish exterior.
It should be noted that the country’s first president never lived in the White House. Washington’s successor, John Adams, was the first resident to become president.
The statue’s arrival follows other changes Trump made to the grounds, including installing two flagpoles and paving a patch of grass that he said poses a problem for women in heels when wet.
“Their heels go through the grass, about four inches deep,” Trump said in an interview with The Spectator published in February.
A construction project to replace the East Wing with a ballroom, which Trump estimated would cost about $200 million, was announced in July.
Trump told NBC News in an interview last month that the ballroom would be “a little bit bigger” than initially planned and could accommodate 900 people instead of the 650 people projected by the White House in a July statement about the construction project.
