A collection of mythology-related paintings by August Pulst was sent to Kanut for restoration from the Estonian Agricultural Museum. Most of them only needed general surface cleaning, but many of the works contained oil lumps, both under the paintwork and partially also on the painting surface, which had not dried completely over the years.

Since such damage has been found before on paintings from the 1960s and 1970s, I, as a student at the time at ERKI (Estonian National Art Institute), developed a version of the reasons for their occurrence.

The late medieval retable of the main altar of the Church of the Holy Spirit of Tallinn is a remarkable work of international importance, completed in 1483 in the workshop of Bernt Notke, the renowned master of Lübeck. In 2019, preparations began for the joint project of the Estonian Open Air Museum's Conservation and Digitisation Center Kanut foundation and the Estonian Academy of Arts which aims to obtain more information about the materials and techniques used in the creation of the work, as well as its subsequent changes, and compare it with other works attributed to Notke. Conservation work started at different times but not completed will be completed parallelly. The fact that the altar retable has been repainted twice over the centuries adds problems and new facets to the task. What value do these layers of history have and how should one relate to previous conservation decisions?

When arriving at Kanut, the iron chest from the Pärnu Museum was impressive in form and weight but dirty and rusty on the surface. The powerful locking system and the obviously handmade look of the item immediately signalled that it is much older than originally thought and that the dirt and corrosion layer hides colourful secrets underneath it.

When dirt- and soot-layers had been removed changes that had occurred in the composition and details of the original icon came in sight. The original, the shape of which had been scratched into the priming with a fine needle seemed to have been rather different from the later-day painting.

The most interesting change is the position of Christ’s fingers on the hand he has raised for blessing. The original icon shows the so-called Latin crossing (the later-day three-fingered sign), but the painting depicts the earlier, two-fingered gesture that was common among the Old Believers.

The Emmaste Apostolic Orthodox Church in Hiiumaa is also known as the Kuriste Church of the Birth of Our Lady. [ill 1] The iconostasis was evidently made in between 1900-1920. It has two diaconal doors decorated with images of archangels. The present article is focused on one of these doors, not a part of the iconostasis any longer and thus further on called icon. Conservators Maria Lillepruun and Harle Poomann from the Estonian Open Air Museum worked out a new conservation concept – a method combining materials and mode that required stabilisation of the wooden base and building up the decayed borders layer by layer.

As expected, the biggest challenge in this conservation work was that the posters were large objects in terms of the usual parameters of the works on paper. The preparation of work surfaces (table, vacuum table) as well as precise planning of work processes (washing on a vacuum table, backing, digitisation) required non-traditional solutions. Some of them required the cooperation of several conservators.