You may not be able to easily holiday in Italy any time soon, but one collaboration is bringing one of the country's museums exhibits into your home – if you have the cash, that is.
Scribit, a robotic drawing tool, has teamed up with the Museo Egizio in Turin, allowing users to reproduce some of the museum's most famous pieces in their homes.
The "write and erase" device – which essentially works like a technology-powered whiteboard marker will be able to recreate masterpieces from the institution, which specialises in Egyptian art and archaeology.
Scribit, the brainchild of Italian design firm CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, is a wheeled device which can manoeuvre around vertical surfaces to create selected artworks and sketches.
You have to see it in action to believe it:
The tool, which was launched thanks to a 2018 crowd-funding campaign and named one of Time magazine's Best Inventions of the Year in 2019, is, essentially, a printer for walls.
It can be loaded with any pen with a diameter between 1.3 centimetres and 1.5cm, although there are special Scribit pens that can be purchased which are erasable.
Users can upload designs to the device's app and, as of Wednesday, June 10, they will also find an option to recreate a fragment of the sarcophagus of Djed-Thoth-iu-ef-ankh.
The wooden coffin, which sits in the Museo Egizio, is ornately decorated with inscriptions from the Book of the Dead in glass paste. The sarcophagus housed Thot Djed-Thoth-iu-ef-ankh, according to the museum, the brother of high priest Petosiris, who lived in the 4th century BC.
"The project by Scribit aims to support the reopening [of Museo Egizio in June], while at the same time imagining new ways of enjoying and making museum collections more accessible," a statement announcing the collaboration said.
Scribit does, however, cost more than the price of an admissions ticket to the museum, ringing in at $499.99 (Dh1,835). The device is currently only able to be shipped in the US, Canada, China, Japan, Australia and countries in the European Union.
Scribit is expected to release more artworks from Museo Egizio on its app in the near future.