France's Bayeux Tapestry to close to public for two years

CNN

20-02-2025

From Picasso's 'Guernica' to Goya's 'Disasters of War,' there have been many famous depictions of conflict, but one of the oldest, and most extraordinary, is France's 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry.
Over 70 meters of 70-centimeter wide linen cloth (around 224 feet by 2 inches), it tells the story surrounding the conquest of England in 1066 — the last time the country was successfully invaded by a hostile foreign force — by William, Duke of Normandy, also known as William the Conqueror.
The creators of this medieval masterpiece have been lost to time, but it's believed to have been commissioned by Odo, bishop of Bayeux and William's half-brother, to decorate the nave of the new cathedral of Notre-Dame of Bayeux, which was consecrated in 1077.
Since 1983 the tapestry has been on display in the Grand Seminary of Bayeux in northwest France, part of the Bayeux Museums complex alongside the Normandy Battle Memorial Museum and the Baron Gérard Museum of Art and History.
However, visitors keen to see this legendary example of propaganda art will have to get their trip in before 7 p.m. local time on August 31, 2025, as the museum is set to close until October 2027 for a major renovation and conservation project.
Its reopening will be in time to mark the millennium of the birth of William the Conqueror.
A new extension to the Grand Seminary, designed by the British architectural firm RSHP, will house the tapestry and double the exhibition space.
The 38-million-euro ($36 million) project is being led by the City of Bayeux, in collaboration with the French State — which owns the tapestry — as well as the Departmental Council of Calvados and the Regional Council of Normandy.
'In terms of economic and cultural influence, this is the most complex and ambitious project… ever undertaken by the Town of Bayeux.' Patrick Gomont, mayor of Bayeux, said in a press release.
As before, the tapestry will be conserved in a hermetically sealed room to protect it from atmospheric pollution and variations in light and climate, but it will now be displayed on an inclined support specially designed to meet the conservation needs of the nearly thousand-year-old piece of fragile textile.
Close to 600,000 people visited the Bayeux Museums in 2024, with the majority of international visitors hailing from the United Kingdom or United States.
The crowds who first flocked to view the tapestry, back in the 11th century, would largely have been illiterate and narrative hangings of this nature, with a mix of picture and text inscriptions, were a way to tell stories that everyone could follow.
The most famous scene on the embroidery — which is not technically a tapestry at all — is of Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, being killed by an arrow to the eye at the Battle of Hastings.
Other standout moments include a depiction of Halley's comet, some six centuries before the birth of Edmond Halley, the English astronomer after which it would one day be named.
Unsurprisingly, conserving the cloth, with its 10 colors of woolen thread made using plant-based dyes, isn't a case of throwing it in the washing machine at 90 F.
'During periods when the museum is closed to the public, in the low season, the work's display stand could be moved inside the premises, turning it into a genuine laboratory,' said Antoine Verney, head curator of Bayeux Museums, in a press release. 'Photographs can be taken, monitoring and studies carried out, as well as the programme for an ambitious restoration campaign overseen by the French State, the artwork's owner, which should stabilise the damages to the embroidered canvas.'
The original colors have changed remarkably little over the years, but the 19th-century restoration work, particularly of the heavily restored final sections, has faded badly.
The operations of its removal and restoration began in January 2025, with the careful dusting of the linen canvas and the removal of its fleece backing, an addition from 1983. It will be removed from its display case when conservation work begins in the fall of 2025, then packaged in a conservation crate before being moved to temporary reserves.
The Bayeux Tapestry isn't the only popular French attraction to be going under wraps this year. The Centre Pompidou in Paris, the 1970s cultural center with a groundbreaking inside-out construction, will close for five years from late summer 2025.
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