EN NEEDLEMAN and Peter Fodera are co-owners of Fodera Fine Art Conservation. Together, they have more than 40 years of experience in art conservation. They have a studio in Manhattan's Garment District.

NYC24: Do you consider art conservation more of an art or a science?

KEN NEEDLEMAN: I think it's both. I think like most things in life, there's probably more art in it than science. We have to do what we do in an artful way. I mean that in the broad sense of the word. We really have to figure out how to navigate the waters from a practical point of view in working with the objects, but also in making your way in the world, making this a viable profession.

PETER FODERA: Ultimately, things have to look good. If they're clinically stable, it doesn't necessarily mean they're in touch with what the artist was trying to do when he created the object.

KEN NEEDLEMAN: This is the whole artifact and artwork idea. We're very much interested in the aesthetic issues. That's not to say we want to impose a fashionable aesthetic or prevailing aesthetic on an object, but we want to try to reconcile what the item is physically with the way it looks now and the way it must have looked, as near as we can infer, by examining the evidence that we can gather.

PETER FODERA: We just conserved two pieces of furniture by Lannouiller, a French cabinetmaker who came to New York City. These two tables were made as a pair. At some point within the last 100 years, the pair was split up. One was restored, but completely overdone and over painted. The other was sent to a chicken coop, I kid you not. No restoration, no conservation of any sort. All of that chicken-poop environment is very rich in ammonia and corrosive elements. It stayed there untouched. The collector had the good fortune of finding both pieces. We spent a lot of time working on the chicken-coop piece first. By working on that, we got an idea about what the piece was supposed to look like. It helped a lot being able to refer to the first piece when we got to the second piece.

KEN NEEDLEMAN: These are from 1815 or so, early 19th century. Interestingly, the coop piece was not badly treated; it was neglected. The mate to this table had been poorly treated and that's a very different situation. Neglect is often much more benign than mistreatment.

NYC24: What's the real difference between restoration and conservation?

PETER FODERA: Very often when you have a painting that's flaking and losing paint, you need to do more than cover it up. You need to do something to treat the condition even though people may not know you only covered up the problem. You treat the problem and that's really the difference between restoration and conservation, we will treat the cause rather than the resulting problem.

KEN NEEDLEMAN: If we didn't treat the cause, it may look pretty again, but the problem will still exist and continue.

NYC24: Do your clients understand that? Or do they say, "I just want this to look pretty again"?

PETER FODERA: This generation of conservators is trying to educate the public about what it is we do and why it's necessary. It's a little bit like getting people to understand that preventive hygiene, going to the dentist, is going to keep you from getting cavities.

NYC24: Do clients really understand that?

PETER FODERA: Some are more receptive than others are, but you try and walk a balance.

KEN NEEDLEMAN: This is the real world. Some people are not receptive. We're lucky because we aim to a certain part of the market that is usually well informed about what they should do. Some don't want to spend the money and others just want a basic cleaning of a piece. It depends.