The NFT craze continues unabated. As such, the British Museum is pursuing its collaboration with the French start-up LaCollection to produce NFT versions of some of its artworks. After a first initiative dedicated to the Japanese painter Hokusai, the British institution is now turning to the works of William Turner.
Art collectors are turning to NFTs as the latest hot investment. Now into 2022, The British Museum in London is offering a second set of NFTs for art lovers to pursue.
The NFT craze continues unabated. As such, the British Museum is pursuing its collaboration with the French start-up LaCollection to produce NFT versions of some of its artworks. After a first initiative dedicated to the Japanese painter Hokusai, the British institution is now turning to the works of William Turner.
Digitising the Works in the British Museum
The British Museum has digitised 20 of the English painter’s artworks and turned them into Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs. The works were bequeathed to the institution by Robert Wylie Lloyd, the former chairman of Christie’s. Among them are watercolours by the English painter, such as “The Colosseum, Rome” and “Lucerne by Moonlight.”
According to The Art Newspaper, these digital objects will soon go up for sale on the LaCollection website. They are classified in different categories: “Ultra Rare” (with two copies), “Super Rare” (with 10 copies) and “Open Edition” (with a maximum of 99 copies). Some NFTs will be sold at a fixed price, while others will be auctioned off to bidders.

The British Museum Surfs the NFT Wave
This is the second time that the British Museum has auctioned NFTs of artworks drawn from its collection. At the end of September, the museum entered this booming market by selling 200 digital works by Hokusai, including several copies of the “Great Wave off Kanagawa.”
Collectors who participated in this venture will be the first to be able to bid on some of the Turner NFTs. “Building and rewarding its community is a cornerstone of the LaCollection project and with this in mind the first Ultra Rare and Open Edition NFTs will be exclusively made available to existing community members who have previously purchased a Hokusai NFT,” reads a statement reported by The Art Newspaper.
The LaCollection start-up was co-founded by Jean-Sébastien Beaucamps to help museums reach new audiences with NFTs, the digital property certificates whose authenticity is verified by blockchain.
This article is published via AFP Relaxnews.