Paper, 'Some experiments and observations on the colours used in painting by the ancients' by Sir H [Humphry] Davy Two copies of the manuscript. Subject: Anthropology Published in Philosophical Transactions as 'Some experiments and observations on the colours used in painting by the ancients'. Written by Davy in Rome. Read 23 February 1815. Abstract published in Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society of London], Volume 2, 1833. 14 January 1815