ODERA AND NEEDLEMAN met in 1982 on a project to conserve John Vanderlyn's "Panoramic View of the Gardens at Versailles." Physical work on this enormous painting, circa 1815, which still hangs in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, took more than a year. Knowing what to do took over a year of research on the artist and his world before that.

Tools of the trade. PHOTO: Nancy Rica Schiff

Fodera and Needleman left the Met and went into business for themselves in 1983. In 1992, they moved into their current studio with close-up view of the Empire State Building.

They still do work on assignment for the Met, for other museums around the country, for private collectors and for auction houses and galleries. They specialize in American and European painting, but are also experts in preserving painted furniture. In recent years they have also become known for their ability to put together teams of conservators, both in their own shop and from the outside, who can work together on complex projects requiring myriad specialties.

Peter Fodera examines slides showing the conservation of a 19th century cigar store Indian. PHOTO: Rob Frehse

One such project involved a pair of tables, circa 1815-1819, by Scharles Honore Lannouiller. The pair had been split up decades before. One table had been placed in a chicken coop; the other had been treated as the valuable collector's item it was. Both tables came on the market within 18 months of each other and the buyer brought them to Fodera.

Oddly enough, the piece that had been treated as art posed the greater conservation problem, Needleman said. While the paint on the chicken coop piece had faded, the other one had been re-guilded and re-painted. It was more difficult to remove the added paint and to restore the guilding on the more lovingly handled table than it was to clean the one from the chicken coop.

Such expertise and attention to detail comes at a price. Fodera says their conservation of a piece of art costs anywhere between $1,000 and $100,000. Most jobs cost between $5,000 and $10,000.

FEW BLOCKS AWAY from Fodera Fine Arts, Charles von Nostitz plies his trade as a solo practitioner. (He brings in assistants on an individual project basis.) He works for a variety of clients from the Christie's auction house impressionist department to Columbia University.

Charles von Nostitz and Lenora Paglia examine the layers of paint on a 19th century American landscape. PHOTO:Rob Frehse

In explaining how he conserves a painting, von Nostitz notes, "Whatever we do is designed to be reversible." If in future years another conservator is called upon to repair a painting, he should be able to tell the distinction between the original artist's work and the conservator's reparations. Often, one conservator will need to fix the less proficient work of a predecessor.

Like other conservators, von Nostitz serves as a consultant to buyers and sellers of art, advising them on the condition of a work and whether it should be repaired prior to sale.

In conserving a work of art, the idea is not necessarily to do what the artist did. Sometimes for example, the conservator will treat an old oil painting with watercolors since it may be impossible to match new oils with old oils. Often a conservator's work involves removing the varnish on an old painting. He or she might decide to replace it with a synthetic varnish that was not invented when the work was painted originally.

The intention is to mimic the effect, not the technique. "We try to approach a work with as few assumptions as possible and as much objectivity as possible," Needleman says.