The Bayeux Tapestry is coming to Britain for the very first time since 1077. In what is perhaps one of the most significant exchanges in recent art history, the tableau will be on loan to the British Museum from Autumn 2026, with France receiving in return the Lewis chess pieces and the treasures of the Sutton Hoo ship burial, among others.
Announcing the exchange at a speech to the Houses of Parliament on July 8, French President Emmanuel Macron joked: ‘I have to say it took probably more years to deliver this project than all the Brexit texts, because we launched it together with Prime Minister Theresa May at that time during a summit a few years ago,’ before adding: ‘I think the mutual loans of these extraordinary national treasures will involve fascinating human exchanges, which will certainly be positive for our future in terms of culture.’
Speaking at the British Museum the following day and referring specifically to the Sutton Hoo treasures and the Bayeux Tapestry, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, added: ‘Both these treasures contain stories of war and of peace, of power and of politics, alliances and enemies that we still know all too well in our modern world. They show us how connected our countries have always been, they deepen our appreciation of our shared history and enrich the relationship between our two nations today’.
Chronicling the Norman conquest and the Battle of Hastings across a 225ft-long sequence of 58 scenes, 626 characters and 202 horses, the Bayeux ‘Tapestry’ is anything but, as it was not woven on a loom. It is, in fact, intricate embroidery work, most likely commissioned by Odo, maternal half brother to William the Conqueror, who is duly shown in a panel blessing the victuals for the Norman army. He may have intended the piece as a present for the newly crowned English king, although this didn’t prevent a dispute between the two in later years, when Odo considered gallivanting to Italy, possibly in a bid to make himself Pope. In 1076, William accused him of defrauding the crown, locked him up and only agreed on his deathbed to release his half-brother from prison.
‘We tend to think of the Tapestry as an extraordinary work of art, which it is, but it’s also one of the most effective pieces of propaganda ever made,’ art historian Bendor Grosvenor, author of The Invention of British Art, tells Country Life. From the moment the ageing Edward the Confessor names William his heir, to the arrow that pierces Harold’s eye and seals the Anglo-Saxons’ fate, the tableau establishes in great detail the (actually rather flimsy) Norman claim over England. ‘The Tapestry was designed to make the Norman conquest of England seem legitimate and destined, and for almost a thousand years has succeeded in making the English think it was.’
It is surprising, then, to discover that it was probably stitched on these shores, in Canterbury, perhaps by local nuns. It may have initially been meant for Dover Castle — Odo was also Earl of Kent for a time — but by 1077 it had later headed for Normandy and the cathedral of Bayeux (after his trial, the Norman lord was deprived of his English role, but retained his bishopric). The Tapestry remained in France ever since and may even have had a narrow escape during the French Revolution when, as Grosvenor reveals in his book, ‘it was almost turned into a wagon cover’.
The Bayeux Museum, where the Tapestry has been residing since 1983, will shut for renovation from September 2025, with the tableau arriving at the British Museum the following autumn. ‘The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most important and unique cultural artefacts in the world, which illustrates the deep ties between Britain and France and has fascinated people across geographies and generations,’ director Nicholas Cullinan said in a statement. ‘It is hard to overstate the significance of this extraordinary opportunity of displaying it at the British Museum and we are profoundly grateful to everyone involved.’
The tableau will become the centre of a flagship exhibition on the Norman period, ahead of returning to Bayeux when the local museum reopens in 2027.