Wood splitters

Wood splitters is a 1886 painting by the Australian artist Tom Roberts.[1] The painting depicts three rural labourers "splitting and stacking timber for the preparation of charcoal".[1] Roberts, influenced by the Barbizon school and Jules Bastien-Lepage, would later return to the theme of rural men working in his works A break away! and Shearing the Rams.[1]

Wood splitters
Artist	Tom Roberts
Year	1886
Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	61.4 cm × 92.3 cm (24.2 in × 36.3 in)
Location	Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat

Roberts painted the picture from sketches made at a camp he made with Frederick McCubbin at Box Hill, then a rural locality east of Melbourne.[1]

The painting was acquired by the Art Gallery of Ballarat in 1961. The work was stolen from the gallery in 1978. A ransom was paid the following year for the safe recovery of the painting from a park in Sydney.[1]