Parish church of St. Helena, who could have been born in Škrip, was completed in 1816. It was built as a single-nave hall church in the Baroque style on the site of an older church which was demolished in 1767 because it was in such bad condition.
South of the semi-circular apse, there is an auxiliary room in which the discarded upper part of the two-part (probably) sacristy cabinet was located, covered with rubbish and exposed to extremely unfavourable microclimatic conditions. Its lower part, according to current knowledge, has not been preserved.
The rectangular cabinet (225 x 136 x 61 cm) has five doors. The central door has one wing, while the other four are paired to the left and right of the central one, but the layout on the interior does not match the layout of the doors (i.e. it does not have three parts), and it is divided into two parts. Due to this type of layout, the central door does not open, although it has hinges. This door is horizontally divided into four cassettes, and the others are divided into three cassettes that decrease in size from top to bottom. The cassettes contain cartouches, i.e. parts of cartouches, but the exception is the central bottom door that has only two profiled slats.
As part of the 2018 research, radiocarbon dating was performed to determine the age of the wood, which showed that it was most likely cut between 1490 and 1523, making the cabinet one the oldest preserved items in Dalmatia.
Examination of the coniferous wood surface, most likely spruce or fir, showed that the cabinet was not originally varnished or painted, which is rare in secular or church furniture. The painted parts of the cabinet are a subsequent intervention, probably carried out while painting another object, when the cabinet served as a surface for cleaning brushes.
Before conservation carried out at the Split Department for Conservation of the Croatian Conservation Institute, it was necessary to determine the theoretical framework used to develop technical and technological methods. After detailed documentation of the existing condition of the wooden support, a survey of the existing condition with all the damage and a schematic representation of the rings of the wood was made. Extensive documentation and analyses of materials determined the course of conservation developed to honour the existing condition and preserve numerous features of the object, bearing in mind the necessary stability and presentability of this objet d'art.
The most delicate phase was the removal of dirt and paint from the surface of the cabinet. Wood that has not been varnished is extremely porous, so there was danger that dirt and paint would penetrate deeper into the wood structure when cleaning the surface. The process involved a combination of dry cleaning and cleaning with gel solvents of different compositions adapted to the treated surface. The broken parts were glued with bone glue, also used to make the cabinet.
In order to preserve the original method used to assemble the cabinet using wrought iron nails, it was decided that the metal appliques would not be removed, but to adapt to the original. A copolymer of ethyl methacrylate and methyl acrylate was used as a consolidant, which was applied only to the damaged areas.
Although the cabinet is considered to have been used in a church, we cannot rule out the possibility that it originally had a different purpose. Therefore, future research will also focus on trying to find its original location and function. The future presentation of this exceptional piece of our heritage will expand the knowledge about church interiors in 16th century Dalmatia.