Bernt Notke and Pawel Blome – two masters of the altar retable of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Tallinn on the conservator's desk

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?