Some 200 Swifties attended a special event at a German museum on Sunday to catch a glimpse of an Art Nouveau painting that possibly inspired “The Fate of Ophelia” – the opening track of US superstar Taylor Swift’s latest album.
Following the release of “The Life of a Showgirl” last month, the Wiesbaden Museum has experienced a surge in Swift fans wanting to view the painting of “Ophelia” exhibited there.
In the opening scene of the video for “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift takes on the role of Ophelia and becomes a living painting.
According to the museum, it is not officially known which motif served as the template for the video. However, a direct comparison shows a great similarity to the work of Art Nouveau and Symbolist painter Friedrich Heyser (1857-1921) from the Wiesbaden collection.
Tickets for the special guided tour on Sunday sold out within a few hours.
The visitors, mostly young women, were given a presentation on the history of the painting, dated to around 1900, with a museum employee explaining the links between Shakespeare’s character Ophelia in “Hamlet,” the artwork and Swift’s music video.
The painting depicts a young noblewoman who descends into madness and drowns after being driven to despair after being spurned by Hamlet.
Many of the fans were dressed up as Swift or Ophelia, with the museum having promised free admission to anyone in a costume.
Swifties and museum employees also implored Swift to check out the painting herself, chanting: “Taylor, come to Wiesbaden!”
Swift’s 12th studio album has received less favourable reviews than many of her previous releases, but it still broke the US record for first-week sales, moving just over 4 million copies.
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