WISeKey $WKEY and Creative Film Partners Launch First-Ever
Colonial American Artwork NFT Auction to WISe.Art MarketPlace
Auction Ends on Independence Day
Geneva, Switzerland - June 3, 2021 - WISeKey International Holding Ltd (SIX: WIHN, NASDAQ: WKEY), a leading cyber security, IoT, and AI platform company, and Creative Film Partners, LLC (CFP), a Richmond, VA based new media firm, announced today a first-of-its-kind Colonial American Artwork NFT auction to be held from June 21 through Independence Day, July 4, 2021.
The NFT up for bid is a medium-frame digital photograph of an original John Wollaston oil painting of George Plater III, Maryland's sixth Governor, from the private Tayloe family collection. George Plater III (1735 - 1792) was an American planter, lawyer, and statesman from Saint Mary's County, Maryland. He represented Maryland in the Continental Congress from 1778 to 1780, and served as Governor of Maryland from 1791 to 1792.
The original Wollaston painting, owned by J. Tayloe Emery, great (x6) grand-nephew of Governor George Plater, and a principal at Creative Film Partners, is listed in the Catalog of American Portraits as part of the Smithsonian Institute's National Portrait Gallery. Mr. Emery plans to use any proceeds from the auction to clean and restore the original painting, which has been in the Tayloe family collection for centuries.
The NFT auction of the George Plater portrait will take place from June 21 to July 4, 2021 on the WISe.Art NFT MarketPlace platform and will be accessible from www.wise.art.
Included in this one-of-a-kind NFT auction are: a full-frame digital twin of the original oil painting taken by NYC-based photographer C. Taylor Crothers; detailed Tayloe family provenance information of the original painting; and, as a tangible item, a framed, signed C. Taylor Crothers archival color print of the portrait with an inlay of the NFT blockchain hashtag.
Mr. Emery commented, "This is a revolutionary idea for a painting of an American Revolutionary. The NFT being minted will forever be the official digital record of this classic American Colonial portrait and likely outlast the original painting itself."
"Besides just the 'WOW' factor of an NFT auction of an American Colonial artwork," added Emery, "the additional security created through the NFT itself becomes a means to help identify, restore and possibly even recover the painting should anything ever happen to it."
In April, WISeKey launched WISe.Art, a digital certificate of authenticity, creating NFTs for art pieces that will live forever on the blockchain, unchanged and unchallengeable, as proof of the NFT buyer's ownership.
"The WISe.Art announcement created a strong buzz in the global fine art community," said Carlos Moreira, CEO of WISeKey. "We are looking forward to auctioning off this incredible NFT of American Colonial history and providing a means of digital security for the new NFT owner and the original painting at the same time."
WISe.Key is the first company in the world to use dual factor authentication combined with blockchain technology to secure luxury watches and artworks.
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About WISeKey
WISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey microprocessors secure the pervasive computing shaping today's Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an install base of over 1.5 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens etc.). WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications to predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.
Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKey's Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust ("RoT") provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com.
Press and investor contacts:
| WISeKey International Holding Ltd Company Contact: Carlos Moreira Chairman & CEO Tel: +41 22 594 3000 info@wisekey.com | WISeKey Investor Relations (US) Contact: Lena Cati The Equity Group Inc. Tel: +1 212 836-9611 lcati@equityny.com |
About Creative Film Partners:
Based in Richmond, Va. and New York City, longtime new media collaborators John Tayloe Emery and C. Taylor Crothers have recently started a division of their film company to provide turnkey NFT solutions for private art owners, galleries, and museums across the world at www.creativefilmpartners.com
Company Contact:
John Tayloe Emery Austin Mill
CEO PR
804-313-0815 804-310-6669
tayloe.emery@gmail.com austin@admillpr.com
Disclaimer:
This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey.
