13 million euros from the State to renovate the Bayeux tapestry and offer it a new museum in 2027

The fabric fresco and embroidery retracing the conquest of England by Guillaume the conqueror will have a facelift. The Minister of Culture Rachida Dati announced in Bayeux on Friday the participation of the State in the construction of a new museum and the renovation of the Bayeux tapestry.

« The state will support all the costs of restoring the tapestry, of which it owns », said Rachida Dati. « More than 2 million euros will be devoted to it, out of a total of 13 million euros in funding » devoted to the project by the Ministry of Culture.

A project at 38 million euros

The total cost of the project is 38 million euros. It will also be funded by the Normandy Region and the Calvados Department up to 10.5 million euros each, and 7 million by the City of Bayeux. The tapestry curator, Antoine Verney, assures AFP « the need to review the conditions for presenting the work ».

Presented since 1983, standing, in a long corridor in “u” of an old seminar of Bayeux, this « embroidered story » 70 meters long recounts the conquest of England in the year 1066 by Guillaume, Duke of Normandy, who will later become “Guillaume the Conqueror”.

Textile tensions

However, the current, vertical presentation, imposes « important tensions on this thousand years textile, which now requires an inclined section »according to its curator. This implies « the construction of a new conservation room over 70 meters long to allow its presentation ».

Embroidered in the XI^e century, we don’t know « not much » from the conservation of the tapestry until the end of the 15th century, « date on which it appears in the inventory of the Cathedral Treasury »retraces Antoine Verney. The tapestry is now hyper vigilance to protect it from « The manipulation that undergoes tensions to textiles » Light as well as ambient air, he adds.

A temperature of nineteen degrees must be observed, a hygrometry rate of 50 %, and 50 lux maximum light, which explains that it is presented today in the dark. The museum will close in September 2025 to reopen in 2027, in the form of an extension on 11,000 m² of the seminar where the classified part is currently located and registered in the UNESCO MEMOR OF THE MEMORY.