Treasury to cowl Bayeux Tapestry mortgage to UK for estimated £800m | EUROtoday

The Treasury is about to insure the Bayeux Tapestry in opposition to harm for an estimated £800m whereas it’s on mortgage to the British Museum subsequent 12 months.

The 70m-long embroidery depicting the Battle of Hastings in 1066 will journey from France to London as a part of a deal between the 2 nations’ governments.

The artefact’s transit and its time in storage and on show might be lined underneath the Government Indemnity Scheme (GIS). Indemnity insurance coverage covers conditions like loss or harm.

A Treasury spokesperson mentioned that, with out the long-standing scheme, “public museums and galleries would face a substantial commercial insurance premium, which would be significantly less cost effective”.

There are considerations concerning the transfer, as some French artwork specialists have steered the practically 1,000-year-old work was in far too a fragile state to be transported – one thing French officers have denied.

It is known the Treasury has obtained an preliminary valuation for masking the Bayeux Tapestry that has been provisionally authorised. The mortgage won’t be formally confirmed till it receives the ultimate valuation.

That remaining valuation is estimated to be round £800m, in keeping with the Financial Times, citing unnamed officers. The Treasury didn’t dispute this determine when approached by the BBC.

The Bayeux Tapestry might be displayed within the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery of the British Museum from subsequent September till July 2027 whereas its present dwelling, the Bayeux Museum, undergoes renovations.

Comprising 58 scenes, 626 characters and 202 horses, the massive masterpiece charts a contested time in Anglo-French relations when William The Conqueror took the English throne from Harold Godwinson, turning into the primary Norman king of England.

The authorities’s indemnity scheme permits artwork and cultural objects to be proven publicly within the UK which “might not have been otherwise because the cost of insurance would have been too high”.

The scheme – first arrange in 1980 – has facilitated quite a few high-value loans, together with Vincent van Gogh’s 1888 work The Bedroom to the National Gallery.

The scheme is estimated to avoid wasting museums and galleries round £81m a 12 months when in comparison with the price of taking out industrial insurance coverage.

In change for the Bayeux Tapestry, the British Museum will mortgage objects to France, together with the seventh Century Anglo-Saxon artefacts found on the Sutton Hoo burial web site in Suffolk and the twelfth Century Lewis chess items.