critics studied his work closely, some appear not to have acquainted themselves with the painter himself, as he was a fairly private person avoiding crowds. For instance, in Table Talk, the Melbourne weekly from 1885 to 1939 (9 January 1891. p 8), a "masterful cattle piece" is elaborately praised and described in detail, but the painter is three times referred to as "Herr J. H. Scheltema". Its writer may have been assumed he was German, perhaps from his Dutch accent. A decade later an Adelaide art writer would still introduce him as a 'Belgian artist'. Fairly soon after his death, the combination of so many of his works in the community, mainly in Victoria, and his retirement to far away Queensland gave rise to the peculiar rumour, reported in the press, that he never existed: his signature "J. H. Scheltema" would have been a pseudonym of another artist. Also, some puzzling texts appeared in the second half on the 20th century in Australian art reference works then considered reliable and hence from writers who use these routinely as gospel, e.g. suggesting without evidence, and erroneously, that Scheltema painted mainly in monochrome and was said to be colourblind. A number of these also erroneously reported that he studied at the Royal Academy of Brussels and had died in 1938. His wife had placed, from Brisbane, a death notice in a Melbourne newspaper. Serious doubt about the alleged eye affliction was raised in print in 1993: "Many of his works are monochrome, which has given rise to unsubstantiated speculation that he may have been colour-blind". Apart from his etchings, Scheltema's work was rarely in monochrome. These inaccuracies were first noted as such by the then world authority on millipedes, Scheltema's great-nephew Dr C. A. W. Jeekel during his "1980 Australian Expedition" studying millipedes in Eastern Australia, when he also assessed the art literature there. Scheltema formally became an Australian in 1935. References 1861 births 1941 deaths 19th-century Australian painters 19th-century Australian male artists 19th-century Dutch painters 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian male artists Artists from The Hague Australian landscape painters Dutch emigrants to Australia Royal Academy of Art, The Hague alumni Australian male painters