The Book of Inkscape

10.3 Gradient Repeat

As we’ve seen, gradient handles don’t need to coincide with the edges of the object they apply to; they can be positioned absolutely anywhere on the canvas, and the object will just display whatever part of the gradient happens to fall within its limits. This, however, invites the question: What will be used to paint those parts of the object that are not covered by the gradient—those parts that are beyond the ends of a linear or outside the edge of an elliptic?

By default, these areas are painted by the flat color and transparency of the first or last gradient end stop. For example, if you have a small elliptic gradient with semitransparent white at the radii, the rest of the object outside the gradient will also be semitransparent ...