After a high-security night-time operation by several police forces, the Bayeux Tapestry (1066 Tapestry) was transported to the British Museum in London early on 7th July — the first time the delicate embroidery has left France in more than a millennium.
The artefact is one of the world’s great artworks, more than 220 feet long, and tells the story of events leading up to and after the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066.
The tapestry has been described in the past as “too fragile to travel” by French art experts. But Thursday evening, a truck with it in a vibration-dampening, climate-controlled crate departed Bayeux, northern France, at 6:15 p.m., escorted by French security officials, the country’s culture ministry said. The tapestry was then taken by train across the English Channel.
The British police were then with the truck on its way to the British Museum, where it landed at 2.50 a.m., the ministry said.
The tapestry will be on view at the British Museum from Sept. The exhibition runs from 10 to July 11, 2027 and has already been a great success.
The British Museum said it raised more than 2.5 million pounds ($3.3 million) in first-day sales after tickets went on sale this month. The figure of some 80,000 people waiting in an online queue to purchase tickets to view the tapestry in the country where many historians believe it was created is staggering.
Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, stated in a news release that it had been a “monumental effort” to transport the tapestry, and that he was “overwhelmed” by the moment of its arrival at the British Museum’s loading bay.
The tapestry had been requested by the British museums and officials numerous times since the 1950s, but the French officials have refused those requests. However, in 2018, President Emmanuel Macron of France announced in the midst of an Anglo-French political summit that a loan would take place.
That loan has been on the horizon for eight years and has now come and gone, with some French art experts forming a petition that it should never be considered due to the fragility of the tapestry and damage that could be caused by vibrations during transport. The tapestry has 24,204 stains, 9,646 holes and 30 tears, according to a 2020 report.
Macron’s opinion piece about the tapestry was published in The Times of London on Friday. This loan from France has much more than just the movement of an artwork, he wrote. “It is a gesture of trust, it is a proof of a longstanding friendship and an expression of our desire to see France and the United Kingdom jointly building their future.”
The tapestry would undergo condition checks before being carefully installed within a custom showcase case that would be set up in advance of the exhibition opening, the British Museum said in its news release on Friday.
