{"id":218711,"date":"2025-10-17T02:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T02:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218711\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T02:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T02:14:07","slug":"its-been-a-shock-taylor-swift-fans-flock-to-see-german-museums-ophelia-taylor-swift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218711\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s been a shock\u2019: Taylor Swift fans flock to see German museum\u2019s Ophelia | Taylor Swift"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 200-year-old museum in Germany has found itself in the eye of a storm of delighted Taylor Swift fans when it emerged that one of the probable inspirations for the music video<\/a> of her new song The Fate of Ophelia was hanging on its wall.<\/p>\n

In the opening scene of the clip for the first song on Swift\u2019s blockbuster new album The Life of a Showgirl, one of the world\u2019s biggest pop stars assumes the role of the tragic Shakespearean character. The video<\/a>, released earlier this month, was watched more than 27m times on YouTube in the first three days.<\/p>\n

Since then, fans have been flocking to Museum Wiesbaden in the western German city to see a painting by Friedrich Heyser from about 1900<\/a> that appears to have served as the model for Swift\u2019s own take.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Taylor Swift\u2019s Fate of Ophelia video<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are having an absolute Ophelia run at the moment and are quite surprised and happy about it,\u201d a museum spokesperson, Susanne Hirschmann, said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a shock, to be honest. We have a colleague who has a friend who is a Swift fan and she noticed the video\u2019s opening scene had a similarity [with the Heyser painting] and we thought, wow, what a coincidence \u2013 that\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the museum has been unsuccessful so far in its attempts to reach Swift\u2019s team, it did not take long for fans to make the connection themselves, as word spread on social media.<\/p>\n

Hirschmann estimated that 500 people visited last weekend specifically to see Heyser\u2019s Ophelia painting, having asked museum personnel where they could find it \u2013 far eclipsing the usual amount of interest in the wispily romantic image showing Ophelia\u2019s rosebud lips slightly parted and her lifeless body surrounded by water lilies.<\/p>\n

The visitors, many of them young women and girls, have been posing for photos before the painting. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot more teens than we usually see,\u201d Hirschmann said.<\/p>\n

She said the museum, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, was caught completely off guard by its brush with Swift-mania.<\/p>\n

Hirschmann said: \u201cWe have a wonderful art nouveau collection. Many of our guests want to see Alphonse Mucha; they want to see Hector Guimard. But this is the first time we\u2019ve really had a run on a painting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI always liked it,\u201d she said of the Heyser portrait, adding: \u201cThanks to Taylor Swift<\/a>, it\u2019s entered a whole new dimension.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first, the museum\u2019s management was worried that a rush of Swifties could be disruptive to the other guests, but Hirschmann said the fans had \u201ca respectful approach\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s really lovely for us that suddenly everybody is talking about art too, thanks to a global star like Taylor Swift,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not the first time the singer has borrowed from Shakespeare for material, with the 2008 hit Love Story taking a page from Romeo and Juliet.<\/p>\n

It is unclear why Swift appears to have drawn inspiration from Heyser\u2019s vision of Hamlet\u2019s Ophelia, who drowns in a river after her lover accidentally kills her father. In Swift\u2019s song, the \u201celdest daughter of a nobleman\u201d who \u201clived in fantasy\u201d meets a happier ending.<\/p>\n

Initially, Swift watchers thought she had found her muse for the opening scene of the video in the better-known work<\/a> by John Everett Millais from 1852 at London\u2019s Tate museum, but the colour of the dress and the angle of her pose pointed them to Heyser.<\/p>\n

Now, staff in Wiesbaden are speculating whether the American superstar had been in their midst to see the painting for herself without their knowledge, perhaps during her three-city sweep through Germany<\/a> in July 2024 during the Eras tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be truly insane!\u201d Hirschmann said. \u201cWe did ask ourselves: how did this come about? Did she pick the painting out? Has she seen it for herself? Was it a member of her team? I think if Taylor Swift came here, even incognito, we would have noticed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seizing on the unexpected opportunity, the museum has organised an Ophelia reception on 2 November, including a guided tour explaining the history of the painting, Shakespeare\u2019s character and her depiction in Swift\u2019s tune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 200-year-old museum in Germany has found itself in the eye of a storm of delighted Taylor Swift…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-218711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}