British taxpayers will soon pay for the responsibility for damage to the Bayeux Tapestry – £800,000,000, to be specific – while the priceless piece is on loan to the British Museum.
The artefact, depicting the Norman conquest, has been valued at more than twice the price of the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
The indemnity is designed to cover the cost of any damage or loss during the tapestry’s transfer from Normandy, France, to London before it is displayed at the British Museum in 2026.
That indemnity will need to be signed off by Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Moving the 70-metre-long embroidered fabric has been heavily criticised by experts over concerns it will be damaged during transportation.
The loan for the 1,000-year-old woollen tapestry was agreed during French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit in July.
The display is expected to be the British Museum’s biggest exhibition, and has been described by George Osborne, former Conservative chancellor and chair of the museum, as ‘the blockbuster show of our generation’.
A six-page ‘administrative agreement’ between Britain and France details how the artwork will be transported to London and how it must be protected when the exhibition opens in September, the Financial Times reported.
The newspaper also reported that the UK Treasury had ‘received an estimated valuation of the Bayeux Tapestry which has been provisionally approved’.
The deal refers to ‘the temporary relocation of a fragile and degraded thousand-year-old textile’ detailing how it must be moved to London in a special crate.
The tapestry is expected to be transported in a truck travelling via the Channel Tunnel in a crate equipped with ‘a vibration analysis device’.
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It also said the ‘French state’ will oversee a ‘dry run’ of the transfer to London.
The agreement also says the British Museum is responsible for the tapestry’s safekeeping and display during its stay in London until July 2027.
The famous artefact tells the story of the Norman invasion of England in 1066 and is thought to have been created by English nuns in the 11th century.
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