An historic collection, together with investigations into literary sources plus object analyses, indicates which pigments were available at certain periods, when they fell into obsolescence, and when innovations were accepted by painters. The Hafkenschneid collection belonged to an Amsterdam businessman and is now at Delft Technical University. The collection is described and part of its inventory reproduced, with a tabulation of the collection numbers, original designations and analysis results. Microscopic observation and spot tests, IR, AA, XRD, SEM, flame emission spectroscopy and laser microspectral analysis were employed. The collection is considered to have been formed in the latter half of the 18th century and continued until about the 1840s.