True colours of lost Van Gogh revealed for first time Mr Bailey, who found the image while researching his book The Sunflowers Are Mine, said the image also showed the unusual orange frame chosen for the painting by the artist. Most paintings of the time were framed in white. In this painting he used orange against the blue in the background, and you can see two tones of orange to match the two blues. The Sunflowers series was painted in 1887 during one of van Gogh's most productive periods. Many of the paintings were produced as he awaited the arrival in Arles, France, of fellow artist Paul Gauguin. The last of the four hangs in the National Gallery. Mr Bailey believes many of the Sunflowers paintings were only painted because of the unreliability of artists' models in Arles, many of whom failed to turn up. He said: "He painted sunflowers because his model failed to show up. If the model had turned up, it probably would have been something else - it may have been a gardener who sat for him at that time, but we don't know. He always found models difficult. They would ask, 'Who is this foreigner?' That's why he liked flowers. They don't let you down and they don't argue back.