The UK Treasury will insure the Bayeux Tapestry for an estimated £800m when it goes on present on the British Museum (BM) subsequent 12 months. Based on the Monetary Occasions, which first reported particulars of the settlement, the safety will cowl harm or loss throughout the switch of the tapestry from Normandy and likewise whereas it’s on show on the British Museum from subsequent autumn.
The UK Treasury informed the newspaper that it had “obtained an estimated valuation of the Bayeux Tapestry which has been provisionally authorised” with officers concerned within the venture informed that the ultimate valuation might be “round £800m”. The Treasury didn’t dispute this determine when approached.
The artefact, created within the 1070s, might be lined beneath the Authorities Indemnity Scheme (GIS) which, based on a authorities web site, is overseen by the UK division for tradition, media and sport (DCMS). The scheme, backed by UK taxpayers, “permits artwork and cultural objects to be proven publicly within the UK which could not have been in any other case as a result of the price of insurance coverage would have been too excessive”. GIS is estimated to have saved UK museums and galleries round £81m a 12 months in comparison with the price of business insurance coverage.
Particulars revealed within the six-page “administrative settlement” between the French and UK tradition ministries in regards to the tapestry exhibition embrace organising a dry run of the switch to London utilizing a crate “containing a facsimile of the tapestry geared up with a vibration evaluation machine”. The tapestry will reportedly lastly come to London in a truck by way of the Channel Tunnel.
The Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the 1066 Norman invasion and Battle of Hastings, might be displayed within the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery of the British Museum from subsequent September till July 2027 whereas its present residence, the Bayeux Tapestry Museum in Normandy, undergoes renovations. The show will mark the primary time the dear tapestry has been in Britain in nearly 1,000 years.
A BM spokesperson stated that its Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery is “lengthy sufficient to have the ability to accommodate the Tapestry being displayed in a single size”. The dimensions of the BM gallery helps to clarify why it secured the mortgage, reasonably than the opposite important contender, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
In return, a few of the British Museum’s treasures—together with the Lewis chessmen, the Sutton Hoo helmet, the Mould gold cape, and the Dunaverney flesh hook—will journey to Normandy. The historic mortgage settlement was introduced in July by the French president Emmanuel Macron and the British prime minister Keir Starmer on the British Museum.
The brand new €38m Bayeux Tapestry Museum, designed by the British structure apply RSHP (Rogers Stirk Harbour + Companions), is because of reopen in October 2027, to mark the thousandth anniversary of the delivery of William the Conqueror.
