The Bayeux tapestry is so fragile that transporting it dangers irreparable harm, French specialists have stated, as a petition urging Emmanuel Macron to reverse a “catastrophic” resolution to mortgage the distinctive embroidery to Britain handed 60,000 signatures.
France’s president declared in July that the practically 1,000-year-old, 70-metre-long wool-on-linen paintings, which depicts William the Conqueror’s victory over King Harold II of England at Hastings in 1066, would cross the Channel subsequent yr.
For 9 months from September 2026, it is because of be on show on the British Museum, whose director, Nicholas Cullinan, has referred to as it “one of the necessary and distinctive cultural artefacts on this planet”, symbolic of a millennium of shared historical past between Britain and France.
French conservators who’ve labored on the embroidery, nevertheless, say it’s so fragile as to be primarily untransportable, and the organiser of a marketing campaign in opposition to the mortgage argues Macron has ignored near-unanimous knowledgeable recommendation for a grand political gesture.
The 70-metre-long tapestry has been housed since 1983 in a purpose-built museum in Bayeux, Normandy. {Photograph}: Hemis/Alamy
“I’m not in opposition to the mortgage of cultural artefacts and I’ve at all times preferred the UK,” stated Didier Rykner, the editorial director of La Tribune de l’Artwork, an artwork information web site, whose month-old petition in opposition to the mortgage has been signed by practically 62,000 individuals.
“However it is a purely political resolution. Right here is a rare murals, an entirely distinctive historic doc, an artefact with out equal wherever – and which knowledgeable opinion agrees, overwhelmingly, can’t journey. It’s not sophisticated.”
Macron first prompt lending the Bayeux tapestry to the UK – as beforehand requested by London, and rejected by Paris, for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 and, in 1966, for the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings – in 2018.
Conceived because the form of momentous cultural provide which may assist maintain British ties to the continent even because it was getting ready to give up the EU, the plan foundered as cross-Channel relations soured in the course of the bitter Brexit negotiations and their aftermath.
The thought was resurrected as relations steadily improved after Boris Johnson and Liz Truss left Downing St, and accelerated with Keir Starmer’s EU “reset”. French officers say King Charles was additionally instrumental and personally “very supportive” of the plan.
However the mortgage settlement to have fun cross-Channel reconciliation – which may even contain French museums displaying artefacts from the Anglo-Saxon burial web site Sutton Hoo, and the Lewis Chessmen – ignores a long time of warnings in regards to the state of the tapestry.
The material has been weakened by being suspended from a rail for show, specialists say. {Photograph}: Hemis/Alamy
Housed since 1983 in a purpose-built museum in Bayeux resulting from shut subsequent month for a significant two-year renovation, the material has been severely weakened by age but in addition, specialists say, by being displayed suspended from a rail, relatively than laid out flat.
A few of the most damning arguments in opposition to the plan have come from curators and restorers who’ve labored or are engaged on the tapestry, 5 of whom have advised Rykner – on situation of anonymity – of their disbelief and concern.
Exactly as a result of the tapestry was thought of too fragile to maneuver far, advanced plans had been already underneath method to take away it from show and retailer it in the course of the museum’s rebuilding work, with a full restoration to comply with as soon as it was returned.
“We fell off our chairs once we heard,” stated one conservator. “It’s the alternative of all we had ready for.”
Any motion at the entire canvas, in a state of “absolute fragility”, was “fraught with threat, an extremely delicate operation”, stated one other.
Now the embroidery is ready to be carried over a distance of probably greater than 500km (310 miles) “in its most fragile state, with its stabilising lining already eliminated, and earlier than its restoration”, stated a 3rd.
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The tapestry is ‘an entirely distinctive historic doc’, stated Didier Rykner, a journalist and heritage campaigner. {Photograph}: The British Museum/Reuters
All emphasised that the hundreds of present weak spots can be strained, with each motion risking tears, and it appeared virtually inconceivable that what must be a wholly new system of transporting the tapestry could possibly be designed in time.
“It’s discrediting our occupation,” one stated. “Not listening to us is like saying we’re ineffective.” A uncommon conservator to talk publicly, Thalia Bajon Bouzid, stated any harm can be irreversible: “Tears wouldn’t be repaired, for causes of authenticity.”
The curators’ fears echo a number of earlier knowledgeable warnings. As early as 2018, Antoine Verney, the chief curator on the Bayeux Museum, stated he “couldn’t conceive” of it being moved far.
A report by eight vintage textile specialists in 2020 advisable a full restoration, figuring out 24,204 stains, 16,445 creases, 9,646 deficiencies and 30 “non-stabilised” tears, and a pre-restoration examine in 2021 “suggested strongly in opposition to transporting the tapestry over a protracted distance (for greater than an hour)”.
That examine added: “The longer the timeframe for micro-alterations to happen, the better the chance that seen and irreversible alterations will seem”, particularly since “no vibration-absorption system at the moment exists that may eradicate all threat throughout transportation”.
A full restoration of the tapestry was advisable in 2020. {Photograph}: Ville de Bayeux/AP
Yet one more evaluation the next yr reached a lot the identical conclusion, in response to Le Monde – however stays confidential besides to firms submitting tenders for a full feasibility examine into the tapestry’s proposed removing to London, Rykner stated.
To this point, the French authorities has barely acknowledged the specialists’ considerations. Macron went out of his method to dismiss them, saying in July that France had “discovered the most effective specialists of the world to elucidate in excellent element” why the mortgage “was inconceivable”, however “we determined” in any other case.
Philippe Bélaval, the president’s particular adviser on the challenge, has insisted the tapestry is “completely not untransportable”, referring to an “extraordinarily exact” – however confidential – report from early this yr detailing what precautions have to be taken.
“Taking part in with phrases,” stated Rykner. “The transport had already been determined, so it was not the job of this report – about which we all know strictly nothing – to argue in opposition to it. Any paintings is transportable. The query is, in what situation will it arrive?”
The very fact of the matter, Rykner stated, was that Macron, famously enamoured of each the grand theatrical gesture and making his personal choices, had positioned politics over the conservation of an exceptionally susceptible piece of cultural heritage.
One of many tender paperwork associated to the mortgage, Rykner stated, contained what was in all probability a mistake, however a revealing one: “The mortgage of the Bayeux tapestry has been granted”, it reads, “by the President of the Republic, proprietor of the work …”
Within the seventeenth century, Louis XIV, the Solar King, apocryphally stated: ‘“L’état, c’est moi” (“I’m the state.”) This, Rykner stated, was a case of “‘La tapisserie, c’est moi.’ It’s outrageous, and persons are beginning to see why it have to be stopped.”
