Art restoration - Which skill?

After looking around and not finding anything, I thought I'd pose this question: For a character whose goal is to be functionally useful in repairing and restoring aged/damaged/ruined artwork (e.g., a water-damaged painting, a fresco discolored by mold, etc.), what would be the best skill to use?

I have my own thoughts, of course (the repair function of the Craft skill leaps immediately to mind), but I'd like to get some other opinions. I'm certain I can't be the only GM who's had a player ask the question, so I'd love to hear what others think, and the reasons why.

For clarification: The specific situation, in this instance, is a player who wants their character to be skilled in the science of restoring and maintaining antiques and old artwork, but who isn't necessarily interested in having the PC be an artist, in their own right. The question arises from the player's desire to determine whether it would be appropriate to put ranks in a single skill that might cover said science, as a whole (e.g., Profession [art restorer] or similar), rather than being forced to spread many ranks out across a large number of mostly unrelated Craft skills in order to have some demonstrable degree of proficiency.

After all, if the character isn't intended to be a painter and a potter and a sculptor and a silversmith, etc., then is it fair or useful to force them to spend quadruple, quintuple, or even more ranks just to have a usable modifier in a broad array of skills of which they'll only ever employ a single aspect, especially when (in our world) an art restoration professional may need to have a broad knowledge base concerning many types of art, but may have little mechanical artistic aptitude or ability beyond the skillset required to perform their job?

Disclaimer: This is completely personal opinion.

I'd stick to the appropriate Craft skill. Art restoration still requires a crafter's touch--you still need mechanical aptitude, and often imagination is just as important to a restorer as it is to the original artist. Someone good at restoring paintings would not necessarily be good at restoring statuary. Since Pathfinder doesn't have the concept of skill synergy, a custom trait or feat may be in order to boost restoration checks, representing the character's background and focus. A custom Craft skill that covers only art restoration wouldn't break the game, so if you disagree with this interpretation then go for it.

Why Craft over Profession?

While a Craft skill represents ability in creating an item, a Profession skill represents an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge.

Art restoration may require a range of knowledge, but its primary focus is in recreating partially-lost art. I'd let a Profession (art specialist or curator) for things like identifying restored or forged artwork, but I'd require Craft to actually make something with the character's own hand.

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to go the route you suggest and allow a centralized Craft [art restoration] subskill, since Craft already has a built-in repair function. More importantly, it's Intelligence- rather than Wisdom-based, which I feel better represents the need to perform research and to familiarize oneself with minutiae like chemicals, specialized tools and techniques, and so forth as part of the task. Profession might work, functionally, but Wisdom is too intuitive to properly represent the requisite skillset.

I agree with blaphers, to repair/restore an object you need the specific craft skill used to craft it.
Adding a Profession (art restorer) skill would be appropriate for a professional restore, but it wouldn't be the skill used to do the actual restoration work, it would be the skill used to know where to find appropriate materials, who are the other professionals in the field, what you should ask for a job and so on.

There are a few other instances of skills where two different skills do similar but not perfectly overlapping things, as an example the Profession (fortune teller) and the Knowledge (astologer) skills.

There actually is a profession that does this in the real world, they are called conservators. I would think it makes perfect sense to allow the same profession skill to exist in the game.

Disclaimer: Same as above--this is all personal opinion, based on my perception of the design decisions behind the Craft and Profession skills.

The Profession skill isn't just about whether a profession exists. There are real world professions for most of the Craft skills in the game, or at least their real world analogues. Professions in Pathfinder generally aren't used to represent an artisan's skill, though they might be used to represent the non-artisan side of an art. So one might have Profession (toymaker) to handle the various managerial, logistical, and other practical aspects of running a toy shop, franchise, or conglomerate, but for actually making quality toys, you'd still need Craft (toys).

Since art restoration and conservation focuses around the artisan skill required to restore the original work, I feel that Craft is a better skill for the OP's situation. You can have all the practical know-how in the world, but if you don't possess a painter's practiced eye, good luck restoring that painting.

I would say you need both the craft and profession conservator and roll the lower skill. Or just use magic.
The last part is sad but it's just like that.

Disable Device?

Art restoration? That's cantrip work.

Mending and Make Whole ?

Mending and Make Whole ?

That works...if you have all the pieces.

*grabs a dustpan to sweep up decades-old paint chips*

In a world such as Golarion where magic is available, I don't see mundane methods used to preserve or repair valuable artwork. Paying a skilled individual for hours of work to do something that can be done by most folks with even a touch of magic... not sensible. Especially when you consider that the skilled individual could make a mistake that restoration magic won't.

Try restoring this painting to what it was before the attempted restoration by an amateur to its former aspect with make whole or mending.
And make whole don't repair centuries of dirt or smoke accumulated on a object, missing pieces or several other problems.

On the other hand most restorers would probably be willing to give away a kidney to have access to mending and prestidigitation.

In a world such as Golarion where magic is available, I don't see mundane methods used to preserve or repair valuable artwork. Paying a skilled individual for hours of work to do something that can be done by most folks with even a touch of magic... not sensible. Especially when you consider that the skilled individual could make a mistake that restoration magic won't.

I think it could still exist; the culture would adjust. Magic can repair damage to a painting, but doing so well requires a skill check - much like with the Fabricate spell. While there may be wizard-painters who excel at the craft, amateur wizards attempting to prove their power have resulted in too many lost masterpieces- so the art world only trusts the careful mundane skill of a restorer.

Try restoring this painting to what it was before the attempted restoration by an amateur to its former aspect with make whole or mending.

And make whole don't repair centuries of dirt or smoke accumulated on a object, missing pieces or several other problems.

On the other hand most restorers would probably be willing to give away a kidney to have access to mending and prestidigitation.

Not to mention unseen servant.

The Profession skill isn't just about whether a profession exists. There are real world professions for most of the Craft skills in the game, or at least their real world analogues. Professions in Pathfinder generally aren't used to represent an artisan's skill, though they might be used to represent the non-artisan side of an art.

Since art restoration and conservation focuses around the artisan skill required to restore the original work, I feel that Craft is a better skill for the OP's situation. You can have all the practical know-how in the world, but if you don't possess a painter's practiced eye, good luck restoring that painting.

I can appreciate what you are saying here and indeed, I think this is getting into grey area, however a lot of what conservators do isn't actually making art, it is cleaning away centuries of smoke damage, removing plaster that was applied over top of the original work, etc...

My personal bias would be that this falls under the realm of the profession skill.

While a Craft skill represents ability in creating an item, a Profession skill represents an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge.

In that the conservator does not actually make or reproduce art, they are skilled at many ways of repairing many types or art.

Either way I don't think it is going to cause problems with going in either direction. As a DM I would allow the player to choose it as either a profession or craft skill, whatever they prefer.

I'm certain I can't be the only GM who's had a player ask the question, so I'd love to hear what others think, and the reasons why.

I very much suspect that you are. :)

Pretty much the same skills involved in creating art are the ones involved in restoring it. It's simply a lot more fiddly and time consuming.

For a restorer, I would think you would need some knowledge (history) as well.

A restorer would be a craft per say. A conservator would probably be more of a professsion. However a conservator could probably do some of repair work himself as I'm sure he's aquired some crafts over the years but would have an eye to realize what he could do himself or have to comssion out. In order to truly restore something correctly you need to be skilled in the craft used to create it. That's why the best restorers are skilled in multiple crafts irl. To restore an atique chair for example you would need someone skilled in woodworking, upholstery, and possibly metalargy OR you would need 3 people with those skills. You would also need a conservator to determine if a peace needs refinished here, replaced there, stripped, or just repainted. restoring is a trying to make everyone happy role, some collectors prefer an aged look, others prefer a truly functional antique, others want a like mint. Unless they have a specific buyer a conservator has to decide what work to do for overall value to a varied market standard.

With that said this is a game and rl doesn't translate well to crafts and professions, most people for example have more craft skills and profession than pcs get per level. A restorer really wouldn't be good for a pc imo as it requires a lot of skill and experiance. Its one of those things were it would be better left to an NPC who has the years to dedicate honing numerous skills and not something and adventurerer "does in his free time".

If your still insistant about letting your player do this you have to ask him what he's trying to achieve mechanically. If its just fluff for instance just let him take a craft or profession "conservator" and be done with it. On the other hand if his master plan is to restore antiquities to increase item value through the roof I would be very weary of this. In the latter case you could have him make profession:conservator checks for wages and simply add the value to the item restored. Or he could say use craft pottery to restore the same value as a profession to say an old vase but not a painting.

General rule of thumb I tend to go buy is:

Profession provides a service, while Craft provides an item (Quality is based on the checks & DCs).

While I agree 100% with what Craig F just said, I would still let a PC use either skill. This area of the rules is vague enough, and those skills are sufficiently "useless" compared to Perception or UMD, that we can go with whichever benefits the PC more.

Use professional art restorer as your dice rolling, and maybe take one rank in craft alchemy, because its related. Maybe vice versa idk