Would a conservator really describe the work as "toil"?

The Photo of the Week feature of the August 13- 14, 2016 issue of The Wall Street Journal is a picture of three conservators standing on some kind of platform or scaffold and inpainting a ceiling. The caption notes that “restorers toil away on an 18th century fresco at the Sanssouci palace in Potsdam,Germany on Thursday.” The definition of the verb form of “toil” is “to work very hard and/or for a long time, usually doing hard physical work”. Conservators enjoy doing conservation or they leave the field. Would a practicing conservator really describe the work as “toil”?