Get thee to a gallery: Swift fans rush to see Ophelia painting that inspired star

A 200-year-old museum in Germany has found itself at the centre of a storm of delighted Taylor Swift fans after it emerged that one of the probable inspirations for the music video of her song The Fate of Ophelia was hanging on its wall.

- Deborah Cole

In the opening scene of the clip for the first song on Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, she assumes the role of the tragic Shakespearean character. The video was watched more than 27m times on YouTube in the three days following its release.

Since then, fans have been flocking to Museum Wiesbaden in the western German city to see a painting by Friedrich Heyser from around 1900 that appears to have served as the model for Swift’s own take.

“We are having an absolute Ophelia run at the moment and are quite surprised and happy about it,” the museum’s spokesperson Susanne Hirschmann said yesterday.

“It’s been a shock, to be honest. We have a colleague who has a friend who is a Swift fan and she noticed the video’s opening scene had a similarity [with the Heyser painting]. And we thought: wow, what a coincidence - that’s exciting.”