studio of Verlat". Given his previous studies, that could have included: being taught, being employed to assist on large Verlat commissions, as Verlat is documented to have used quite a number of young artists assist him, or in teaching junior students, as also one of his recorded customs was employing young artists to teach. Or it could have been a mixture of these . Works Both in the Netherlands and in Antwerp, Belgium, Scheltema practiced as a figure painter and portrait painter. His best known portraits there are the half body depiction of Johannes van 't Lindenhout (1837–1918), founder of a large educational and employment providing orphanage at Neerbosch, near Nijmegen, Netherlands, two works of the Rev. Carel Steven Adema van Scheltema (1815–1897), activist in campaigning against alcohol abuse and a portrait of Hendrika Jacoba Stokhuijzen (1816–1872), spouse of the latter and mother of their 13 children. Her image was painted using a monochrome photograph, some years after her death by accidental drowning. All five of these are held by public museums in the Netherlands and were painted in the 1880s. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam holds an etching by Scheltema called "Sitting Woman in an Interior" (RT-P-1913-2831), as does the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, called "Grandmother". Soon after arrival in Australia in 1888 he decided that portrait painting could not provide him with a living in Melbourne and successfully specialized in rural landscapes with foreground livestock being the focus rather than staffage. His work often shows the visible brush strokes of the impressionists, but he may be more accurately described as a romantic realist. Almost a thousand paintings depicting his rural scenes are known of him. Yet he also painted some portraits in Australia. For example, the collection of the State Library of Victoria includes his portrait of the soprano Daisy Muriel Pickering. His work is part of at least 24 public collections, most of them in Australia, some in Holland, in New Zealand and Britain. He often signed his work as J. H. Scheltema, underlining only the lower case letters, and was also known as John Henry Scheltema in Australia. Activities and collaborations Scheltema arrived in Melbourne, Australia 7 July 1888 aboard on the French ship SS Oceanien. He joined the Victorian Artists' Society. In Australia his work was soon displayed in the same exhibitions as artists like Charles Conder, Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin.