Portrait of a lady in a white dress ( Eugenie Scheufelen)

Portrait of a Lady in a White Dress (Eugenie Scheufelen) of 1865, in the Federal Republic of Germany collection, identifies the sitter as Eugenie Scheufelen, connecting her to the Scheufelen family of Württemberg paper manufacturers — one of Germany's major industrial dynasties of the nineteenth century. The white dress as a portrait attribute carried specific social meanings in the nineteenth century, suggesting purity, fashionable simplicity, or bridal status, while also providing a technically demanding challenge for the painter. White is notoriously difficult to render convincingly in paint, requiring subtle modulations of cool and warm gray to prevent the dress from appearing chalky or flat. Makart at age twenty undertook this challenge with notable confidence. The portrait's combination of a specific identified sitter with an elaborate costume challenge makes it a significant early work in his portrait practice, suggesting patronage connections to wealthy German industrial families even at the very beginning of his career.

The white dress is the painting's primary technical challenge, and Makart addresses it through subtle chromatic modulation — warm ivory in highlighted areas, cool blue-gray in the shadows — that gives the fabric physical weight and texture. The contrast between the cool white dress and the warmer flesh tones of the face creates a natural focal hierarchy. Background tone is calibrated to provide legible contrast against the white without competing for visual attention.