Tapestries and Marbles

President Macron arrives in London this Wednesday to unveil, alongside  Prime Minister Burnham, the arrival in Britain of the utterly amazing Bayeux Tapestry. It was made under the auspices of William the Conqueror’s Queen  Matilda and it tells the story of the founding moment in English history: the Norman invasion and occupation. The vivid cartoon strip colours of the wonderful tapestry, normally on display in the Norman Cathedral of Bayeux, seem as fresh today as a millennium ago.

There is now a much greater exchange of art treasures that belong to other nations. The  British Museum has sent back 32 items of Asante Royal Regalia to  Ghana after they were brought back as imperial plunder to London in 1896.

The Horniman Museum restored 72 Benin Bronzes looted in 1897 by British soldiers at the height of colonial looting of other nations’ art heritage.

After  World War 2, the US Army occupying Germany brought over art specialists to track down and return the art that German generals and Nazi diplomats stole from the museums and Jewish owners of paintings and sculpture in  occupied Europe.

150  years earlier the Royal Navy helped a syphilitic Scottish aristocrat and British diplomat, Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, to hack and saw off the  foundation sculptures of European art, the Parthenon Marbles.

The looted “Elgin Marbles”, however, remain in the British Museum, whose possession is defended to this day by the British establishment.  The defenders include star names of popular broadcasting about Hellenism, as well as the Whitehall great and the good, brought up in their public schools and Oxbridge colleges on Greek culture, history and philosophy.

One example of an establishment pillar who takes a different view is George Osborne, the Tory grandee, now Chair of the British Museum.  Discussing how the Parthenon Marbles might be returned he told me: “It’s the kind of thing that can only be done when a new government comes in. Everything is in flux and decisions that seem impossible can be taken.”

Unfortunately the self-satisfied Atheneum world of British Hellenism with its high priests and priestesses, who consider the Parthenon Marbles as part of Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage, treat today’s Greeks as an inferior race who should be grateful the English have stolen their founding art so central to the very idea of Europe which the English Right and far-Right have now repudiated.

Two and a half millennia after they were placed on the Acropolis to show the world what European art could mean, can the British find the generosity of spirit to talk to Athens about their return? From the moment the new British prime minister, Andy Burnham, arrived in the Commons in 2001 he signed Early Day Motions with other MPs and even promoted a Private Member’s Bill to open partnership talks with Athens to allow the Marbles to go on show in their home city.

As recently as 2023, at the opening of the Manchester Museum he tweeted: “Send the Marbles back, no strings. And let’s use culture to change how Britain is seen around the world.”

Scientists with the help of AI have developed ways of making identical copies of Europe’s ancient art. Loans over a period of several years are now commonplace. Britain needs friends in Europe. Agreeing with Athens to end the 200 year old shame of looting the Parthenon Marbles would be a good start.

Emmanuel Macron, who agreed to send the Bayeux Tapestry to London while its home is restored, should be the guest of honour when the Parthenon Marbles go on display. The Greeks are proud of the special museum built for them in Athens, close to the Acropolis where they stood for more than 2,000 years before Lord Elgin, helped by the Royal Navy, committed one of the great crimes against art in European history.

Denis MacShane is the former Minister of Europe.

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