The art piece from Chinese ink painting master Qi Baishi has been turned into an NFT. Baishi, who was renowned for his paintings of shrimps and insects, first created the painting in 1945 when he was 81. More than 75 years on, and with the help of NFT art platform TopHolder, the collector of ‘Shrimps’ has digitalized the art piece and posted it on social media platform Sina Weibo, after receiving permission from Baishi’s family to do so. Since his passing in 1957, his works have often fetched millions of yuan at auction houses, with one such creation, ‘Twelve Landscape Screens’, becoming the 8th most expensive painting of all time after it sold for a whopping $148.7 million at an auction in 2017.
The NFT representing Baishi’s Xie Yi-styled painting, ‘Shrimps’ will probably cost millions of yuan or tens of thousands of USD. It will accompany various other NFT artworks at an auction hosted by Shanghai Jiahe Auction on December 31st.
