After launching 200 Hokusai works into NFT sales last fall, The British Museum is now offering up prized works by J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) as collectible NFTs.

The Turner NFTs, comprising a jpeg edition with "tradable" code on the blockchain, start at around €4,999 ($5,660). "Think of it as the emperor’s new code," Bendor Grosvenor writes for The Art Newspaper, blasting the practice as "...giving cultural validity to meaningless reproductions...".

Twenty Turner watercolors come in three "scarcity levels," including editions categorized as Ultra Rare, Super Rare and Open Edition, on the platform La Collection. The dramatic A Storm (or Shipwreck), 1823, is among the offerings, while NFTs based on works between 1825 to 1843 are the priciest "Ultra Rares." The museum will "retain" one edition for each NFT artwork.

As investors like Switzerland-based fashion group Plein start piling into metaverse real estate, a Turner NFT might just end up in a virtual luxury residence—or an art museum in Decentraland.