The location was remote, on a flat bend on an uphill stretch of the road, surrounded by "grass trees and a forest of tall gums.

Before starting on the main canvas Roberts "made tiny drawings and an oil sketch of how he wanted the scene to look.

Critical reception to the work was mixed; with comment in the press about "the way the legs of the men, or the skin of the horses had been depicted" among other things.

[1] Using X-ray photography, art historians now think that Roberts simplified the work considerably, making it flatter and more abstract, in the modernist style that had come into vogue at that time.

[3] Australian artist Ben Quilty reworked Bailed Up in his 2004 painting Gold Soil Wealth for Toil.