So basically, the Eiffel Tower has been painted nearly twenty times. It’s been shades of red, yellow, brown, and grey, and has never been painted black.. yet I always had the impression of it being black.
I've never thought of it black, and I'm a bit at loss as how someone could do so. Look, for instance, at the picture from the associated Wikipedia article. Does that strike you as black?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Tour_Eif...
Pictures of the tower can also have a lot of... texture? If you don't know you're looking at "brown with shadows" you might think you're looking at "black with highlights."