I am unhappy
>that I bought genuine french
>ochre, golden, and found it
>to be exactly the same
>as Davis colors for cement
>(at $5 for a 3
>lb bag!) I think I
>will use more Davis colors,
>the only trouble is they
>use their own names rather
>than traditional artist names.

You should ask the manufacturer for the technical names and compare the two. I am sure if Michelangelo would have had the chance he would go for $5 rather than $500 and he perhaps did -
Yellow Ochre is Yellow Ochre regardless who sells it Kremer, Masonry yard or me:P. I've heard that the pope was very tight.
You will have to clean it though, get rid of rocks, dibree, etc.
It will also take a lot more grinding to get the color to work.
But it does not mean that every art store will sell you proper pigments, certain colors they do not carry anymore altogether.
I know about a fresco painter, Byzantine style - father Sergei, he has his favorite color called "green" (green was all that was written on the bin in masonry yard). I have my favorite blue, from the "same bin" (from a bag that looked like a bin and read blue to be exact), both of us do not want to think about what each of us is going to do when the stash runs out. Green has already been sent to Cyprus to be examined, blue is soon to follow. I was promised the sample of this green as soon as I mail the sample of my blue.

Ilia