The Villa Stuck Museum has made a significant addition to its collection: the Association for the Promotion of the Villa Stuck Foundation (Verein zur Förderung der Stiftung Villa Stuck e. V.) has donated to the museum a previously unknown painting by Franz von Stuck entitled *Damenportrait à la japonaise*. The work, which originally belonged to Stuck’s pupil Max Ackermann, thus returns to the place where it was created. The new acquisition fills a gap in the collections and, thanks to recent research, offers a fresh perspective on the symbolist’s creative universe.
Role portraits and metamorphoses are central motifs in Stuck’s work. Whilst depictions of a bullfighter, an Infanta, an Egyptian woman or a Spanish woman are already known, *Portrait of a Lady à la japonaise* adds a new dimension of exoticism to the artist’s oeuvre through its focus on a non-European culture.