Vincent van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime.

Van Gogh produced more than 2,000 artworks in roughly a decade of feverish work, including some 860 oil paintings, yet only one is documented as having sold while he was alive: The Red Vineyard, bought by a fellow painter’s sister for 400 francs in 1890, months before his death. He supported himself largely through the financial help of his brother Theo, an art dealer who believed in his work long before the public did.

Van Gogh’s posthumous rise was rapid by comparison. Within a few decades of his death in 1890, his paintings were being exhibited across Europe and collected by major museums; today, works like The Starry Night and his self-portraits are among the most recognized images in Western art, and his paintings routinely sell for tens of millions of dollars at auction.