The Evening Standard is inviting readers to celebrate the Coronation with the chance to collect a free one-off digital artwork.
It is based on a painting by artist Trevor Jones which shows St Edward’s Crown — a solid gold piece of history studded with hundreds of precious stones that has been used to crown our kings and queens since 1661. The NFT will show the painting moving into an animation of a revolving crown with sound.
Jones is one of the country’s leading figures in the booming NFT world where his works have sold for millions of US dollars but he has created this piece — called The Oath — to be owned for free.
An NFT, which stands for non-fungible token, is a unique digital trading asset representing real-world objects, such as works of art, that are bought and sold online.
Readers will need only an email address to take their own Oath as the artwork will be available as an open-edition NFT from Thursday until midnight on Sunday on the Nifty Gateway website.
Each NFT will be stored on the block-chain Ethereum. Jones said: “I wanted this particular piece to be for the people and anyone anywhere can mint one of these NFTs for free.”
He told the Standard’s How to be a CEO podcast: “It’s a very unique thing for me to do, I’ve done very well in the space and to create an artwork for such a historical event, to work with the Evening Standard, and then to be able to give this artwork to anyone in the world who wants to have it and they can keep it, they can sell it, they can give it to a friend they can do whatever they want with it.”
The Oath, which is created in collaboration with Apollo Entertainment, shows the crown on a background reflecting the natural world and King Charles’s long-held passion for the environment.
Its title refers to the Coronation Oath, in which the monarch solemnly swears to govern the peoples of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth Realms according to their laws and customs.
A week after the Coronation, anyone who has their open edition of The Oath will get the chance to receive a limited animated version of the work which will be given at random to 444 people. There is also a chance to win one of 10 signed physical prints of the original work.
For more information, please visit Trevor Jones Art website: trevorjonesart.com
