“White on White (and a little gray)” highlights the female response to neoclassicism through three artforms from the Federal era through the ninetheenth century. All-white bedcovers known as whiteworks resonated with classical sculpture through graceful motifs thrown into relief in stuff work, cording, and embroidery. Schoolgirl needleworks known as print works were based on classical mourning motifs and stitched only in black silk threads on shimmering white silk to imitate uncolored engravings. Marble-dust drawings evoked romantic associations with classical themes in sooty lampblack pigment on boards prepared with crushed, glittering marble dust.

In the eighteenth-century imagination, the crystalline austerity sought in neoclassical decorative arts could be captured only in the incorruptibility of whites that invoked the purity and timelessness of classical antiquity. The whiteness of white, comprising all colors and reflecting light, was the perfect metaphor for the Age of Enlightenment.

Stacy C. Hollander, curator

• New York Times review