Efforts to understand polychromy in Roman architecture must address two inherent challenges: first, documenting surface finishes for Roman monuments is difficult when that evidence is scarce and scientific methods of evaluation are continually developing. Second, interpreting and presenting that evidence is far from straightforward. This chapter examines how the presentation of evidence for polychromy was deeply shaped by both the ideology and ideals of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Scholars today still hew to paradigms set decades earlier, often without any awareness of the cultural and historic forces that lie behind their choices. To address these issues, the careful study of architectural polychromy needs to be reintegrated into Roman Bauforschung.