Huon Mallalieu stitches together the European history of the world's most famous embroidery, on show at the British Museum from 10th September to 11th July 2027
My one visit to the tapestry in its Bayeux home is probably the most moving museum experience that I remember.
However familiar in reproduction, to experience the real thing was as powerfully emotional as it was unexpected. The contemporary story that has brought it to the British Museum can only heighten that, as does the two-level viewing, flat and from above. This is likely to be the best attended BM exhibition ever, outdoing even Tutankhamun in 1972.
The long, narrow strip of embroidery was already 400 years old in 1476, when an inventory at Bayeux Cathedral described it as ‘une tente’ (tent or cover) rather than ‘tenture’ – wall-hanging. Extraordinarily, given its universal fame today, that was the first record of it, and there was no further reference anywhere until the 1720s.
Since its original journey from Canterbury (probably) to Bayeux, it has only travelled twice: to the Louvre, by Napoleon who wanted to use it as propaganda for his own cross-Channel invasion; and when it was taken by the Nazis to the Louvre, meaning it avoided damage during the liberation of Normandy. However, it had suffered during the 19th century, at first from neglect and then from well-meaning restorations, most notoriously the fabrication of the arrow in the eye.
The designer and embroiderers were undoubtedly English. Anglo-Saxon embroidery, leading to Opus Anglicanum needlework, was famous across Europe, but little survives, and the Tapestry by size and subject-matter is by far the most important example. It was not, however, unique. Alas, neither the Ely hanging, celebrating the 991 Battle of Maldon, nor the set of Conquest tapestries recorded in the bedchamber of Adela of Blois, William’s daughter, now exist for comparison.
The exhibition gives historic and cultural context with loans and items from the BM. A charter signed by Edward the Confessor, Harold and other leading Saxons brings them close to us, and a manuscript known as Junius II, loaned by the Bodleian, has illustrations that may very well have been known to the designer. The Bayeux Tapestry’s characterful figures spread across Europe, still being found a century later in the Otranto mosaics in Norman Italy.
It is to be hoped that research resulting from this unprecedented show, curated by Professor Michael Lewis’s team, will answer some of the tapestry’s remaining unknowns.
