“The Fate of Ophelia” is a track on Taylor Swift’s newest album “The Life of a Showgirl” (Track by Track Version)”. The star of the video: a work from the Museum Wiesbaden collection.
Locals and visitors can admire the painting by Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser in the Art Nouveau collection of the museum. Ophelia is shown as a so-called tableau vivante in the opening sequence of the official Taylor Swift music video.
Born in Gnoien, Mecklenburg, in 1857, Friedrich Heyser was not previously considered one of the well-known artists of German Art Nouveau and Symbolism. That changed abruptly when singer Taylor Swift referenced Heyser’s painting in her music video “The Fate of Ophelia” in October 2025. In the opening scene, she recreates his composition as a so-called “living picture” (tableau vivant) – impressively bringing the work to life.
Thanks to a donation by F. W. Neess, the Museum Wiesbaden owns an impressive depiction of Ophelia floating on the water, surrounded by white water lilies, by Friedrich Heyser, who died in Dresden in 1921.
On the museum’s website, author Peter Forster, explains: “For Taylor Swift, the figure of Ophelia floating in the water, cloaked in symbolic white, was the starting point for the visual realization of her song. She translates what she sees in the painting into the visual language of her music video, thus connecting art and music in a special way. This makes the Museum Wiesbaden a special place for Swifties: here they can get up close and personal with the artistic thinking of their star.”
The Wiesbaden Museum is open daily except Monday from 10 am to 5 pm, with extended opening hour to 9 pm on Thursdays. Ticket information can be found here.