7 Introduction to the project In 2002, the project, which until then had been exclusively Cologne-based, was transformed into the International Conservation Workshop Lopud (ICWL), a partnership between the universities of Antwerp, Brussels, Split, Dubrovnik and Cologne.3 From then until 2023, a further 4 retables as well as historical furniture from the two churches were restored in annual two-week summer schools with students and lecturers from the stone, painting, polychromy and wood disciplines in changing teams. Also worth mentioning are the inventarisation and storage of the paraments of the churches as well as the analysis of a series of “Tüchlein” paintings, a special feature of the ensemble in the parish church.4 The ICWL is ongoing and is currently focused on the conservation and restoration of the old choir stalls in the Franciscan monastery church.5 The focus here will be on the results of the examination of the retables, as this is a unique collection of wooden polychrome retables. Elsewhere, especially on the mainland of the Dubrovnik region, they have been lost in the devastating earthquake of 1667 or have been replaced by marble retables in the later Baroque style. The relatively isolated location of the island as well as the economic decline of the former Dubrovnik Republic (Ragusa) in the 17th century, to which the island of Lopud belonged, may account for why the early Baroque retables continued to be valued and preserved here. Although alterations to church furnishings after secularisation led to changes in the inventory, the retables remained largely untouched during this phase. A further century of neglect due to various reasons like the straitened situation of the church during the period of Yugoslav communism or lack of funding may be the reason why, on the one hand, the retables were preserved and, on the other, they survived in a fragile, but never reworked, largely untouched, authentic state.
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