Misleading reference to study In the section on lead paint in art which I largely wrote someone added the following Lead paint will often become discolored over long periods of time This is due to the reaction of the lead carbonate in the paint with traces of hydrogen sulfide in the air and with acids often from fingerprints 2 As a result many older works of art that used lead paint now show some discoloration As I found this surprising I went and carefully read the study being cited Their research seemed to refer only to lead in aqueous media on paper although that wasn t absolutely clear But lead paint is almost never used that way Artists working in transparent watercolor aquarelle don t usually use white paint or just occasionally a bit of Chinese White not lead to make corrections And opaque watercolors gouache and acrylic polymer artist s paints typically use titanium dioxide or rarely zinc white but never lead Normally flake white is used only by oil painters and there s no indication in the study that they were referring to oil paints Cooperstown is a well respected institution but as of now I m sticking with the classic Ralph Mayer Flake white may get slightly yellowish after centuries but nothing like the gross discoloration referred to in the paragraph above If someone has more information on this please mention it here otherwise when I come back I m going to delete that paragraph or water it down no pun intended