The British Museum is gearing up for a major logistical challenge: moving the iconic Bayeux Tapestry from Normandy to London. According to the online publication Arts Professional, the museum has set aside £1.2 million to cover the transport, including all the preliminary work needed to get the 11th-century masterpiece safely across the Channel.
The tapestry is already being covered by a UK Treasury guarantee of around £800 million ($1 billion). Now the museum has confirmed the extra cost of transporting the 230-foot-long embroidered wall hanging as part of its nine-month loan. It will be on show in London from September 2026 to July 2027.
Not everyone is happy about the move. Earlier this year, artist David Hockney slammed the loan as a “vanity project” for the British Museum, asking in the Independent why a London institution would risk such a historically significant piece. Meanwhile, a petition in France calling on President Emmanuel Macron to reconsider the decision has gathered more than 70,000 signatures.
The museum, however, has been working to calm nerves. Its director, Nicholas Cullinan, told the Guardian last year that experts on both sides of the Channel are overseeing every step of the process. “This expert-led collaboration, indeed, supported for 12 years by one of our leading specialists on the Bayeux scientific committee, will guide every stage, including a full dry run of the journey,” he said.
And despite the controversy, the museum says complaints have been minimal. In response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from Arts Professional, it revealed that just six expressions of concern have been received, with none coming through the exhibitions inbox. Four FOI requests were also noted as related to worries about hosting the tapestry.
Last year, French art historian Didier Rykner, who is the editor of the online arts journal La Tribune de L’Art, told The Art Newspaper that he hopes to unite the French and British voice of discontent to stop the exchange.
“I think the tapestry must not be transported, for several reasons: its value is incalculable and if anything happens to it no amount of money and no other similar object can replace it,” the former director of the Bayaux Tapestry Museum, Isabelle Attard, told TAN. “It’s [also] extremely fragile because of its age, past movements over the centuries, the way it has been subjected to almost non-stop lighting since its return to Bayeux after World War II, and the way it’s currently presented, sewn to a textile support hung from a rail on little roller bearings, creating tensions everywhere.”
