The Notelet artists Laurence Knappert, Liz Knappert, Meikie Knappert and Rosa Watkinson are four of seven brothers and sisters from Dutch parents, related to Van Gogh. Their mother Rosina was very artistic and their father Professor Jan Knappert remembered a Van Gogh painting of Sun Flowers on the wall of his grandfather's house when he was a small boy.

The artists father recounted the following story. "His grandfather was Professor Dr Laurens Knappert, whose mother was Emilie Charlotte Van Gogh, the sister of Vincent Van Gogh's father Theodorus. Vincent's father was a Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. Vincent Van Gogh was always short of money and so Laurens Knappert loaned Vincent Van Gogh 100 Guilders in around 1885 which was a lot of money at the time. Vincent gave Laurens one of the Sun Flower paintings towards repayment of the loan. The painting was sold in 1935 during the depression, before Vincent Van Gogh became famous as a result of an exhibition in New York."

Vincent van Gogh possibly only sold one painting, The Red Vineyard, but on the 15th May 1990 The Portrait of Dr. Gachet is sold in auction at Christie's for $82.5 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting. On the 14 November 1990, Vincent's pen-and-ink rendering, Garden with Flowers sells in a Christie's auction for $8.36 million, making it the highest price ever paid for a drawing.

Vincent Van Gogh was a very prolific painter but there is doubt that he sold a painting in his lifetime. Interestingly the Notelet artists Laurence, Liz, Rosa and Meikie have already sold more than one hundred paintings each and their work has been viewed by many millions of people in their lifetime.