Taylor Swift fans flock to German museum to see painting with similarities to The Fate of Ophelia video

A German museum is suddenly inundated with Taylor Swift fans because one of his paintings bears a striking resemblance to the opening scene from Swift's current number one hit music video. Ophelia's fate.

Hundreds of extra visitors flocked to the Hessische Landesmuseum in the central German city of Wiesbaden over the weekend to admire the painting, with one family traveling from the northern city of Hamburg especially for the occasion, museum spokeswoman Susanne Hirschmann told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Among the visitors were also many American families stationed at the US military base in Wiesbaden.

Swifty's goal: viewing Friedrich Heiser's Art Nouveau painting of Ophelia, Hamlet's lover from William Shakespeare's play of the same name.

In the original play, Ophelia, a young noblewoman from Denmark, eventually loses her mind and drowns.

Heizer's oil on canvas painting depicts the figure of Ophelia dressed in white and surrounded by white water lilies. The exact year the painting was created is unknown, but experts believe it dates back to around 1900.

In the first scene of the video for the hit Ophelia's fateSwift plays the role of Ophelia and becomes a living version of the film. The scene bears similarities to Heyser's work, museum director Andreas Henning told German news agency dpa.

Hirschmann said the museum team noticed the similarities earlier this month and decided to invite Swifties on a special tour next month. Once they posted the tour on their website, news of Ophelia's painting soon went viral on the Internet.

“We're really enjoying the attention — it's a lot of fun,” Hirschmann said, adding that all fans who come to the Nov. 2 tour dressed as the pop star or “the tragic beauty Ophelia” will be able to attend for free.

Henning said the museum has already tried to contact the singer, but has so far been unsuccessful. “I would love to show Taylor Swift the original painting someday,” he said.

“We are surprised and delighted that Taylor Swift used this painting from the museum as inspiration for her video,” Henning said. “This is, of course, a great opportunity to attract people to the museum who don’t know us yet.”

The museum said it does not know for sure whether the artwork served as a template for Swift's song, which is currently a No. 1 hit in both Germany and the United States.