We Were Watching An Antiques Program,

when the subject of fake paintings came up,

and how to detect them, so it was with some interest when I stumbled on this article and video about rare colours and pigments,

 and how they can tell if a painting is an original or not, by using pigments that are dated and cross referenced with the life of the painter, if the two do not match chances are it is a fake, 

the Forbes Pigment Collection, is housed in the Harvard Art Museum, a floor-to-ceiling wall of color compiled between about 1910 and 1944 by the director of the Fogg Art Museum, 

if you have time, grab a coffee and have a look at this video, the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies director Narayan Khandekar takes us through the collection to see some of the rarest pigments including the rarest of the rare, Indian yellow, a particularly vivid shade of yellow produced from the urine of cows which eat a particular type of leaf, a very interesting video and he ends it with a great statement about the colors he looks after.