Duncan Anderson, the owner of Newstead North, where The Golden Fleece was painted, looks over the shoulder of the foreground right standing shearer; he holds a fleece. Roberts here depicted fourteen markedly diverse heads, young and old. He took an informed interest in costume and relished the soiled bush clothing of men who work day-after-day with greasy animals, especially the improvised footwear: moccasins made from woolsack hessian. The open blinds would have caused too much glare for actual shearing but here provide an understanding of associated outside work, and of the hill country. This work was not an image of a particular shearing team, but was a symbolic, public work honouring co-operative and repetitive skilled labour.