LONDON — The Bayeux Tapestry, the Eleventh-century paintings depicting the conquest of England, will likely be displayed within the U.Okay. for the primary time in nearly 1,000 years.
Officers mentioned Tuesday that the valuable medieval tapestry will likely be on mortgage from France and arrive subsequent 12 months on the British Museum, the place it’s going to famous person in a blockbuster exhibition from September 2026 to July 2027.
The mortgage used to be introduced all over French President Emmanuel Macron’s state consult with to the U.Okay.
The delicate 70-meter (230-foot) material depicts the occasions main as much as the Norman conquest of England by means of William the Conqueror in 1066. The paintings used to be believed to were commissioned by means of Bishop Odo of Bayeux and has been displayed in quite a lot of places throughout France, together with maximum not too long ago on the Bayeux Museum in Normandy.
“The Bayeux Tapestry is among the maximum iconic items of artwork ever produced within the U.Okay. and I’m extremely joyful that we will welcome it right here in 2026,” Tradition Secretary Lisa Nandy mentioned in a observation.
“This mortgage is a logo of our shared historical past with our pals in France, a courting constructed over centuries and one who continues to undergo,” she added.
In go back, the British Museum will mortgage treasures from the Sutton Hoo assortment — artifacts from a seventh century Anglo Saxon send burial — to museums in Normandy. The excavation of Sutton Hoo used to be dramatized within the 2021 movie “The Dig” starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan.
Different pieces to be loaned to France come with the Lewis Chessmen, the mysterious medieval chess items carved from walrus tusks and whales’ tooth relationship from across the twelfth century that had been found out at the Isle of Lewis in Scotland.
