Hermitage Museum & Binance Auction Iconic Art as NFTs

NEW DELHI: The largest art museum of the world, State Hermitage Museum, in St Petersburg, Russia has recently partnered with the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, for auctioning some of the best art pieces in the form of non-fungible tokens ( NFTs).
The auction will go on from August 31 to September 7, 2021, Bitcoin.com reports. The NFT auction showcases NFT artforms by world-renowned artists like Leonardo Da Vinci, Claud Monet, Vincent Van Gogh.
There are altogether 5 NFTs, each with a starting bid of 10,000 Binance dollar. The 5 users who successfully purchase NFTs from the auction will receive an exclusive NFT video featuring MIkhail Pitrovsky, general director of Hermitage Museum showing how he certifies copies of each artwork by signing and indicating the exact timing of each signature.
The collection is titled ‘Your token is in the hermitage’ features limited edition NFTs with digital copies of the world’s masterpieces from Hermitage’s main exhibition.
Each digital work has two NFT copies, of which one will be stored at the State Hermitage museum, and the other will be sold at the auction.
Each NFT copy will have authenticity and absolute uniqueness of the limited series of work being personally signed by Mikhail with exact place and time perpetuated in the blockchain.
Some of the works being featured in the NFT collection are Madonna Litta by Leonardo da Vinci, Lilac Bush by Vincent Van Gogh, Corner of Garden at Montgeron by Claude Monet, Composition VI by Wassily Kadinsky and Judith by Giorgine.
The State Hermitage museum was founded in 1764, when Russia’s Empress Catherine the Great introduced an impressive collection of paintings received from Johann Ernst, a Berlin merchant.
The Museum had revealed the NFT collection and Binance Marketplace collaboration on 26th July, 2021. Mikhail had said then that blockchain has opened a new chapter in the development of the art market, led by ownership and guarantee of ownership. It is an important stage in the development of the relationship between person and money and a person and a thing.