A digital Rembrandt museum with all his paintings. The sale of 8,000 NFTs of The Night Watch should enable the construction of the ‘meta museum’. That is the plan of The Rembrandt Heritage Foundation. This foundation, founded in Amsterdam, will soon start selling digital certificates of ownership of tiny pieces of the famous civic guard’s piece.
On the site of the digital museum under construction, metarembrandt.com, it says that it is a tribute to Ernst van de Wetering, the art historian who died last year and who was associated with the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) for 46 years. Through his work for this research group, which examined all paintings attributed to Rembrandt for authenticity, Van de Wetering became the international Rembrandt authority. With the digital museum, his legacy will be preserved for the future, the site states.
Also read Ernst van de Wetering’s obituary: A Rembrandt was only a Rembrandt when he said it
Edzard Gelderman is chairman of The Rembrandt Heritage Foundation. For his company TCR Holding, the art historian put together an exhibition in 2006 with full-size reproductions of all Rembrandt paintings recognized by his research group. From 2006 to 2019, this exhibition attracted many hundreds of thousands of visitors in Amsterdam, Japan and New Zealand. Due to the high start-up costs, the exhibition was not a financial success, says Gelderman. “Rembrandt has turned out to be an expensive hobby.”
The entrepreneur wanted to „do something with the legacy from Van de Wetering,” he says. “His beautiful exhibition was in a cupboard. What else could we do with that?” The idea for a digital museum was born with a Rotterdam company specialized in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. But such a virtual museum also costs quite a bit, says Gelderman: “Game studios can make it, but then you’re quickly talking about a few hundred thousand euros.”
Clipped up Nightwatch
The NFTs must bring in the necessary funds. A reconstruction made by Van de Wetering of the original version of The Night Watch – in 1715 pieces were cut on all sides of the canvas that have been lost – has been digitally cut up into 8,000 pieces of almost 2.5 square centimeters. These fragments, placed under a virtual glass bell jar, will be offered for sale within a few weeks. The price of the NFTs is not yet fixed, says Gelderman, but will be between 0.1 and 0.15 ethereum (164 to 246 euros).
Buyers cannot opt for the eye of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq or any other recognizable part of the painting. The NFTs will be allocated randomly. According to the site, the buyers are “the founders and treasurers, the Night Watchmen, of the MetaRembrandt Museum.” Their NFT will soon provide access to the digital museum. Buyers can also rent out their certificate to other museum visitors.
Parallel Universe
With the advent of NFTs last year, a new parallel artistic universe seemed to have emerged; on the art market, prices for the new medium rose in record time. But interest waned just as quickly at the end of last year. When asked whether his foundation is not too late with the Rembrandt NFTs, Gelderman answers: „The great madness has indeed disappeared. We will see.”
TCR Holding has already incurred considerable costs for setting up and promoting the project. If all 8,000 NFTs are sold, the company will receive an amount between 1.3 and 2 million euros. If the sale is unexpectedly disappointing, says Gelderman, the investment costs will first be covered and the foundation will use the remaining amount to build a simplified version of the museum. Gelderman: “There are all kinds of degrees of how beautiful such a museum can be.”
Carin van Nes, Van de Wetering’s partner, agreed with the plan, she says. “Ernst would have really liked that his Rembrandt project with a digital museum is made accessible to the whole world. He was always eager to share his knowledge.”
The Night Watch is owned by the municipality of Amsterdam and is on perpetual loan in the Rijksmuseum. The museum is neither enthusiastic nor moody about the initiative, according to a written response from a spokesperson. “The collection of the Rijksmuseum is for everyone. We have an open data policy for non-copyrighted images, meaning anyone can use the (copyright-free) images.”