The Golden Fleece (painting)

Tom Roberts' artwork ‘The Golden Fleece’ is a classic piece of Australian Art in its character and theme. In his series of shearing themed images, Roberts sought to pay homage to Australian rural life and in particular the sheep and wool pastural imagery. It forms part of the Australian art display in the Nation Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Composition.
‘The Golden Fleece’ is an oil on canvas composition. The image depicted in the painting shows the inside of an active timber shearing shed from the 1890’s. It features seventeen male shearers at work, in a shearing station using traditional hand clippers to shear the sheep. The style of the painting is classified as Australian Impressionism. Australian Impressionism is an art movement that took up in Australia in the form of the Heidelberg School. Tom Roberts is remembered to be one of the key contributors to this artistic movement.
The frame is attributed to the 19th-century carver John Thallon from Melbourne. It was restored in 2010,
History.
Shearing the Rams.
‘The Golden Fleece’ is the second sheep shearing themed painting in a series done by Tom Roberts. A few years prior to the painting of ‘The Golden Fleece’, Roberts composed a painting called Shearing the Rams that was completed in the year 1890. This painting was set in the Brockelsby Sheep Station in Victoria, Roberts was living in Melbourne at the time. At the time of its completion, the painting was exhibited in Roberts’ Collins street studio in Melbourne, and it was Roberts’ hope that he could sell it to the National Gallery of Victoria. However, it was sold to a local stock agent named Edmund Trenchard who bought it privately for 350 guineas. Roberts' intention was to pay homage to Australia’s pastoral culture through his artwork. He said in reference to ‘Shearing the Rams’. 
"“It seems to me that one of the best words spoken to an artist is "Paint what you love, and love what you paint," and on that I have worked: and so it came that being in the bush and feeling the delight and fascination of the great pastoral life and work I have tried to express it [...] So lying on wool-bales ... it seemed that I had there the best expression of my subject, a subject noble and worthy enough if I could express the meaning and spirit—of strong masculine labour, the patience of the animals whose year's growth is being stripped from them for man's use and the great human interest in the whole scene.”
— Tom Roberts, 1890"
Painting ‘The Golden Fleece’.
In 1891, a year after selling ‘Shearing the Rams’, Tom Roberts moved to Sydney, Australia. He was still disappointed at the first of his pastoral themed paintings not being taken up by the National Art Gallery of Victoria and decided that he would begin a second work of a similar theme. It was during his time living in New South Wales that he visited the woolshed of Duncan Anderson's Newstead North Station, in the North of New South Wales near Inverell. Here he would set and paint his new artwork, what is now known as ‘The Golden Fleece’. Roberts used live models to stage the painting off, these models were the real employees of the shearing shed in Newstead. The owner Duncan Anderson, is also included in the painting, he is the non-labouring figure standing to the far left wearing a suit and a hat that shadows over his face. It took Roberts approximately 4 months to complete the painting, after which it was exhibited in New South Wales. The same year of its completion, the painting was scouted and purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales where it remains today.
Significance of the name.
When Tom Roberts first composed the painting in 1894, it was titled and exhibited as “Shearing at Newstead”, however when it was purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Roberts presented it under the title of ‘The Golden Fleece’. The exact circumstances surrounding the changing of the name are unclear, however it is generally acknowledged that Dunkin Anderson, the owner of the sheep station, was the one who suggested the knew title in reference to the ancient Greek myth of Jason and the quest for the Golden Fleece. The implications of this title is a reflection of Robert's creation of the rural worker as 'hero'.‘The Golden Fleece’ also has a uniquely Australian reference as the country was popularly referred to as ‘the land of the golden fleece’. This title was first coined by a well-known British journalist by the name of George Augustus Sala who referred to Australia as such. This name was granted to Australia in reference to the significance of the Australian sheep and wool industry and its gross contribution the country’s economic state. 
Critical acclimation.
"‘The three sheep pictures show maleness and manual labour and celebrate the Australia that once 'rode on the sheep's back"' 
- Christopher Menz