diff --git a/IPython/kernel/zmq/pylab/config.py b/IPython/kernel/zmq/pylab/config.py
index 0f2d4d2..fe2c1a5 100644
--- a/IPython/kernel/zmq/pylab/config.py
+++ b/IPython/kernel/zmq/pylab/config.py
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ class InlineBackend(InlineBackendConfig):
         # play nicely with white background in the Qt and notebook frontend
         'figure.facecolor': (1,1,1,0),
         'figure.edgecolor': (1,1,1,0),
+        'axes.facecolor': (1,1,1,0),
         # 12pt labels get cutoff on 6x4 logplots, so use 10pt.
         'font.size': 10,
         # 72 dpi matches SVG/qtconsole