KASIA WALICKA MAIMONE: I’ve studied this portrait quite a bit.

NARRATOR: Costume designer Kasia Walicka Maimone…

WALICKA MAIMONE: It was definitely an inspiration for dinner dresses for several of our characters for The Gilded Age. In the end, what is incredibly fascinating to me is that impression of luminescence of this dress.

NARRATOR: The late-1800s was an era of gas lamps and candlelight. So, couturiers designed evening-wear that could shine in the low light of the period.

WALICKA MAIMONE: And I think that Sargent here portrays so well that idea of an evening dress that creates luminescence and lights up the character.

NARRATOR: As you can see, Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherford White holds her fan and opera glasses, ready for a night out on the town. Mrs. White was the wife of American diplomat Henry White, and this portrait was Sargent’s first significant commission of a member of high society.

Once again, Sargent displays a nuanced mastery of the color white, in all its shades in the opulent textiles and setting for this portrait.

WALICKA MAIMONE: I see so many different whites in this portrayal of this dress. The way that the silk, which has natural luminescence and reflection, I see it as this blue-white. Like the tulle that is at the bottom of the dress, that reads more like a lavender with a little bit of yellow in it, and that creates more of a tonal beige-y color–versus the white at the bottom of the dress, which feels much more like a pure white.

The world of white is a world of infinity.