How was the large terra-cotta warrior forgery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art exposed?

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Hear about William Henry Ireland's fake manuscripts of William Shakespeare including a letter written to his wife — Forgery A look at a letter supposedly written by William Shakespeare to his wife, Anne Hathaway; it was, in fact, faked by William-Henry Ireland.

The large terra-cotta warrior forgery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was exposed through a combination of technical analysis and a confession.1

Although experts initially believed the eight-foot-tall statue was an authentic Etruscan masterpiece that borrowed design motifs from a smaller Greek bronze, its legitimacy was challenged in 1961 after the piece had been in the museum's collection for 40 years. A technical analysis of the black glaze covering the figure revealed that it contained manganese, a coloring agent that was never used for that purpose in ancient times. Following this discovery, the forgery was confirmed when Alfredo Adolfo Fioravanti, the sole survivor of the three individuals who created the piece, confessed to the fraud.1