Binance’s NFT marketplace has announced a partnership with the State Hermitage Museum to issue tokens that represent the works of renowned artists including Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh.
In its July 27 blog post, Binance disclosed its partnership with the Saint Petersburg-based museum will see the creation and issuance of nonfungible tokens at the end of August 2021.
The auction of the tokens will be available to all users of the platform.
The Hermitage Museum, according to the blogpost, came up with the idea to tokenize the artworks. Limited edition NFT copies of Da Vinci’s Madonna Litta, van Gogh’s Lilac Bush, Claude Monet’s Corner of the Garden at Montgeron, and Giorgione’s Judith, will be launched during the August auction.
For each masterpiece of the renowned artists, two NFT tokens, signed and dated by the Hermitage’s director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, will be created. One of these will be preserved at the museum and the other auctioned on the Binance NFT marketplace.
The project aims to “provide a new level of accessibility to the Hermitage’s collections” and being a democratic museum, it lays emphasis on “the importance of digitalization as a new stage in the world of collecting artworks.”
“New technologies, in particular blockchain, have opened a new chapter in the development of the art market, led by the ownership and the guarantee of this ownership,” Piotrovsky notes on the museum’s decision to leverage NFTs.
He adds that NFTs “creates democracy, makes luxury more accessible, but at the same time exceptional and exclusive. We will expand other opportunities, in particular digital ones, which will introduce the collections and the palace. We will build new experiments based on new technologies”.
“Recognition of blockchain technology and NFTs by one of the largest museums in the world is another step towards global digitalization,” said Helen Hai, the head of Binance NFT. “We highly appreciate the opportunity to cooperate with The State Hermitage; together we are making history.”
The tokens will be displayed at the museum’s NFT art exhibition this fall. Also, all revenue generated from the sale will go to The State Hermitage Museum.
