Starting November 13, 2025, our visitors can look forward to a scavenger hunt inspired by lyrics from Swift's popular songs. The scavenger hunt will lead guests through the permanent exhibitions on art and nature, where they will find various clues, known as “Easter eggs.”

Are there any other references to art in Taylor Swift's work? Do certain colors appear repeatedly? Participants can pick up a Swiftie flyer at the museum ticket office and set off on their own tour. Those who take part can enter a prize draw. On the 13th of each month, we will raffle off a Swiftie package from the museum shop among all correct answers.

Teacher training
Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 3:00–4:30 p.m.
Taylor Swift's Ophelia: Quotation as an artistic strategy
5,— euros, Further information can be found here.

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.

Friedrich Heyser studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden under Leon Pohle and Paul Mohn from 1880 to 1883, then under Ferdinand Keller in Karlsruhe from 1883 to 1885. In 1890, he spent a short period studying at the Académie Julian in Paris. Heyser was a member of the General German Art Association and the Grün-Weiß artists' group, which was founded in Dresden around 1910.

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.

The scene is taken from William Shakespeare's Hamlet and was famously rendered in 1852 by the English painter John Everett Millais, a representative of the Pre-Raphaelites — a group of artists who took their inspiration from the art of Raphael. His “Ophelia” is considered the most famous depiction of this motif.

Some fifty years later, Heyser revisited the theme and created his own mysterious reinterpretation. His landscape format painting, probably created around 1900, clearly references Millais' work in its composition, but transforms it into a depiction of a youthful beauty absorbed in the cycle of life and transience. The popularity of the Pre-Raphaelites — with their unique combination of nature and ornamentation — influenced many Art Nouveau artists and was also echoed in Heyser's work.