The UK government will insure the Bayeux Tapestry for the sum of £800m when it travels from Normandy to London later this year, reports the Financial Times. The indemnity will cover the 70-metre-long embroidery against damage or loss during transit and while it is on display at the British Museum from September until July 2027. The policy, which has been provisionally approved by the Treasury but awaits sign-off by chancellor Rachel Reeves, falls under the Government Indemnity Scheme, which allows museums and galleries to borrow high-value works for exhibitions at a significantly lower rate of insurance than commercial insurers would offer. The Bayeux Tapestry indemnity is part of an ‘administrative arrangement’ between the UK and France, which lays out the terms of the loan in detail.
Tristram Hunt, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, has been knighted in the UK’s New Year Honours list for ‘services to museums’. Since taking up the role in 2017, Hunt has overseen the V&A’s expansion into east London. V&A East Storehouse opened in May 2025 and allows visitors to order items from the museum’s collection of 1.2m items and inspect them up close; the V&A East Museum, which comprises a hall for temporary exhibitions, two permanent collection galleries and an events space, is scheduled to open in April. In other New Year Honours, the curator Ekow Eshun and Jo Quinton-Tulloch, director of the National Science and Media Museum, have been awarded OBEs. Hilary McGrady, director-general of the National Trust, is now a CBE.
Christine Tohmé has resigned as curator of the 18th Istanbul Biennial and the event has ended two years early, reports the Art Newspaper. Tohmé, who was appointed in October 2024, oversaw the first part of the Biennial from September to November 2025; the event was intended to run over three years, with an academic programme taking place this year and a second exhibition to be held in 2027, but the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) – the private foundation that manages the Biennial – has cancelled these two programmes after Tohmé’s departure, which the IKSV says is due to ‘personal circumstances’. Some 600,000 people attended the first leg of the Biennial.
Guy Wildenstein has stepped down as president of Wildenstein & Co – but says that it has nothing to do with his conviction for tax fraud, reports the Art Newspaper. Wildenstein, who is 80 years old and was president of the dealership for 35 years, was found guilty of tax fraud by a French court in 2024. He was sentenced to four years in prison – two suspended, two spent under house arrest – and ordered to pay a €1m fine and hundreds of millions of euros in back taxes. Wildenstein’s son David will take over as president, and his daughter Vanessa will be vice-president.
