Historical narratives: Was Dutch admiral Piet Heyn’s silver basin made from ``treasure fleet'' silver?

• Provenance study of early modern silver from Europe and the Americas. • Insight in Dutch Republic silver and its composition/likely mining area’s. • Minimally invasive high precision lead isotope analysis. • Integrated research involving historians, curators, conservators and geochemists. • Connotation prestigious silver basin was manufactured from treasure fleet (American) silver turns out to be wrong. According to folklore, a basin was made from silver of the 1628 Spanish treasure fleet. Both historical and analytical research has been undertaken to establish if this is true. The basin’s chemistry has been compared to contemporary silver objects from European and the American sources. It is concluded that the basin is produced from silver of both European and Mexican origin, comparable to silver prevalent in The Netherlands in the 17th century. Although part of the silver could originate from the treasure fleet, the most probable conclusion is that an American provenance is false and was invented to give more significance to the basin.