The Astonishing History Behind the Painting That Inspired Taylor Swift’s New Album Cover
Sir John Everett’s Ophelia has been part of Tate Britain’s permanent collection since 1894
Taylor Swift’s twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, is here, and the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter took inspiration from a Galerie-worthy source: Sir John Everett Millais’s famed painting Ophelia (1851-1852). Both the album cover and the first track on the album, titled The Fate of Ophelia, draw clear parallels to the esteemed work.
Swift herself confirmed the artwork’s influence in a recent interview with BBC Radio 1’s Greg James, stating, “the album cover is a reference to the famous Ophelia painting, which then ends up being referenced in the music video.” In true Swift fashion, this was a moment of foreshadowing that there is more to come concerning the painting’s inspiration for her new album, with The Official Release Party of a Showgirl set for a later release than the music itself. “There’s more references to this painting,” Swift added.
Located in the Tate Britain, which offers free admission to all, Ophelia is a Pre-Raphaelite oil painting on canvas. It was part of the original Sir Henry Tate Gift, when Tate presented his private collection of 65 paintings and two sculptures to the British government. This led to the creation of the Tate Britain, originally known as the National Gallery of British Art, in 1894.
The aforementioned album cover features Swift partially underwater, much like Ophelia, while the track The Fate of Ophelia possesses lyrics like “no longer drowning and deceived,” “I might’ve drowned in the melancholy,” and “saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia.”
Sir John Everett Millais’s Ophelia depicts the moment in Shakespeare’s Hamlet when the character Ophelia dies by drowning in Act IV, Scene VII. The artist painted the setting while overlooking the Hogsmill River in Surrey, England. The subject of the painting was artist and model Elizabeth Siddal, who posed for Millais by lying in a bathtub filled with water, all the while sporting a wedding dress.
In an 1852 letter to Thomas Combe, Millais wrote, “Today I have purchased a really splendid lady’s ancient dress—all flowered over in silver embroidery—and I am going to paint it for ‘Ophelia.’ You may imagine it is something rather good when I tell you it cost me, old and dirty as it is, four pounds.”
The modeling process for the painting took four months, and the bath was kept warm only by lamps underneath it. There was one instance when the lamps went out, leading Siddal to develop a serious cold. Her father threatened to sue Millais until the artist consented to pay the doctor’s bills.
Millais detailed the less-than-pleasant painting experience in a letter to Mrs. Thomas Combe, wife of British printer and publisher Thomas Combe, writing, “My martyrdom is more trying than any I have hitherto experienced. The flies of Surrey are more muscular, and have a still greater propensity for probing human flesh.”
He continued, “I am threatened with a notice to appear before a magistrate for trespassing in a field and destroying the hay … am also in danger of being blown by the wind into the water, and becoming intimate with the feelings of Ophelia when that Lady sank to muddy death, together with the (less likely) total disappearance, through the voracity of the flies … Certainly the painting of a picture under such circumstances would be a greater punishment to a murderer than hanging.”
The Official Release Party of a Showgirl will premiere in theaters beginning the afternoon of October 3, and will not be available on YouTube until October 5.