how to set widget background?

[Guenther Meyer <d s e sordidmusic com>]

hi,

I have a hbox that looks like this:

---------------------------------
|          |                    |
|   ****   |  tttttttttttttttt  |
|   ****   |  tttttttt          |
|          |                    |
---------------------------------

**** is a gtkimage
tttt is text in gtklabel

how can I set the background color for the whole hbox?
gtk_widget_modify_bg won't work.

I need the color for the whole hbox. when I set the background of the text, 
only the background of the letters is drawn in the specified color...