Bayeux Tapestry - Replicas

Replicas

There are a number of replicas of the Bayeux Tapestry in existence. Through the collaboration of William Morris with textile manufacturer Thomas Wardle, Wardle's wife Elizabeth, who was an accomplished seamstress, embarked on creating a reproduction in 1885. She organised some 37 women in her Leek School of Art Embroidery to collaborate working from a full-scale water-colour facsimile drawing provided by the South Kensington Museum The full-size replica was finished in 1886 and is now exhibited in the Museum of Reading in Reading, Berkshire, England. The naked figure in the original tapestry (in the border below the Ælfgyva figure) is depicted wearing a brief garment because the drawing which was worked from was similarly bowdlerised.

Ray Dugan of University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, completed a stitched replica in 1996. Since its completion, it has been displayed in various museums and galleries in Canada and the United States.

Starting in 2000, the Bayeux Group, part of the Viking Group Lindholm Høje, has been making an accurate replica of the Bayeux Tapestry in Denmark, using the original sewing technique.

A hand-painted full-size replica of the Bayeux Tapestry is at the University of West Georgia, Carrollton, Georgia, United States. It is displayed in the third floor atrium of the Humanities building as part of an art gallery. Dr. E.D. Wheeler, former judge and former dean at Oglethorpe University, commissioned the work and donated it to the university in 1997.

An approximately half scale mosaic version of the Bayeux Tapestry is on display at Geraldine, New Zealand. It was created by Michael Linton over a period of twenty years from 1979. The work includes a hypothetical reconstruction of the missing final section of the Tapestry—events up to the coronation of William the Conqueror on Christmas Day 1066.