The craze for pop star Taylor Swift’s new song ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ has spread all the way to Wiesbaden in western Germany. Fans are flocking to the museum to see the painting ‘Ophelia’, known to have inspired the music video.

According to AFP on the 3rd (local time), a special event held the previous day at the Wiesbaden Museum drew about 200 fans and sold out. After hearing a curator’s explanation, when Swift’s new song came over the gallery speakers, attendees danced in front of the painting and sang along in unison. After the event, they also took commemorative photos in front of Heiser’s work. Some fans, like Swift in the music video, dressed as Shakespeare’s Ophelia, wearing white dresses with flowers in their hair, while others stood out in Swift’s signature sparkling outfits.

Isabel Bastian, a 26-year-old university student who attended the event, said, “I really love art, so I wanted to see the connection between the Ophelia painting and Taylor Swift for myself,” adding, “The atmosphere is so good. It feels like a small concert.”

Corinna Greiner, 47, who attended with her daughter, told AFP, “It was hard to believe that the painting that inspired Taylor Swift is hanging right here in Wiesbaden,” adding, “When I found that out, I was overwhelmed with emotion.”

Heiser’s ‘Ophelia’ depicts the tragic heroine of Shakespeare’s 〈Hamlet〉 lying in a white dress on a river strewn with flowers, and is thought to have been completed around 1900.

Although the museum has held the painting since 2019, it did not expect Swift to use it in a music video. Only after the new song was released last month and fans’ photos and posts flooded social media did the museum realize the work was being called ‘Swift’s Ophelia’.

Museum director Andreas Henning said, “It’s truly astonishing,” adding, “We didn’t expect Swift to choose this painting. Now fans are coming not only from Germany but also from France and the United Kingdom. It’s clearly a major cultural phenomenon.”

Swift is well known for the ‘Swift Effect’, the significant economic ripple effect she triggers with every world tour.

Recently, after Swift appeared wearing a vintage T-shirt featuring a sea otter, fans around the world bought the same item and related merchandise, raising more than $2.3 million (approximately 3.3 billion KRW) for sea otter conservation funds. And in August, after news of her engagement to American football player Travis Kelce, when she posted a photo on social media of the couple holding hands with an engagement ring on, the stock price of the related jewelry brand soared.