The Bayeux Tapestry, which paperwork the Norman invasion of England in 1066, will be closed to the public in France from Monday as opposition mounts forward of its transfer to London.
The next time it will be potential to see the almost 1,000-year-old work of artwork should be when it goes on show at the British Museum in September next yr.
However, the French artwork world is fiercely opposed to the project, with consultants fearing the 70m-long (230ft) masterpiece is in far too delicate a state to be transported across the Channel.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced the loan when they met in London in July.
The last few weeks have seen a huge rise in customer numbers at the Bayeux Museum forward of its closure from 1 September.
A new show space is being constructed for the tapestry, which will take at least two years.
The closure – long deliberate – is what gave Macron the alternative to carry out his act of cultural diplomacy, committing France to loaning the tapestry to the British Museum for a yr from next September.
But that promise has triggered an outcry from many in the French artwork world.
A petition – which describes the loan as a cultural crime – has drawn 60,000 signatures.
What many opponents resent above all is the high-handed means they really feel Macron determined to make his gesture to the UK, overriding the advice of specialists who say the vibrations inevitable in a long journey by street could cause irreparable injury.
On 22 August a French official overseeing the loan defended the transfer, saying the artefact was not too fragile to transport.
Philippe Bélaval said no choice had yet been taken on how to transport the tapestry, but highlighted a research from earlier this yr that had made detailed suggestions about handling and transport.
“This study absolutely does not state that this tapestry is untransportable,” Belaval said, quoted by the AFP information company. He did not reveal the authors of the research or their conclusions.
Cecile Binet, a regional museum adviser for Normandy, said in a YouTube post in February this yr that transferring the tapestry long distances would be “a risk to its conservation”, including that it was “too fragile”.
The big embroidery – which is extensively believed to have been created in Kent – will be displayed in London from next autumn until July 2027.
In exchange, treasures including artefacts from the Anglo-Saxon burial mounds at Sutton Hoo and the twelfth Century Lewis chess items will journey to museums in Normandy.
The Bayeux Tapestry, which dates back to the eleventh Century, charts a contested time in Anglo-French relations, as Anglo Saxon dominance was changed by Norman rule.
Although the remaining half of the embroidery is lacking, it ends with the Anglo Saxons fleeing at the finish of the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Its 58 scenes, 626 characters and 202 horses give a distinctive account of the medieval period in Normandy and England, revealing not just info about navy traditions but also the treasured particulars of day by day life.
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