The body of the painting can be tested with a wide spectrum of tools. They range, to name a few, from X-ray diffraction (XRD), Roman spectroscopy, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray flourescence (SEM/EDX), pyrolysis-gas chromatography–mass spectometry (Py—GC—MS) to laser desorption ionization-time of flight-mass spectroscopy (LDI—TOF—MS) and gamma-ray spectoscopy.
When Van Meegeren, the notorious Vermeer forger, made his first attempt at forging The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals (1580-1666), X-ray diffraction (a technique reliant on the scattering of incident X-rays by a crystalline pigment producing a characteristic diffraction patter) revealed that the collar was painted with zinc oxide and the coat in synthetic ultramarine, which were discovered only in 1782 and 1828, respectively.
Today, molecular Roman spectroscopy (an in situ tool that makes use of the inelastically scatter light from a laser beam that strikes the surface of the painting) is preferred to X-ray diffraction because of its totally nondestructive nature. The data obtained are generally compared with reference spectra, allowing the identification of organic and inorganic pigments as well as binding media.