Gonzalo Pérez
1451 · Kingdom of Valencia · Late Gothic, International Gothic, Valencian school
The story
For more than a century, historians could not agree whether this painter was one man or two. Records from 15th-century Valencia name both a Gonçal Peris and a Gonçal Peris Sarrià, and the question stayed open until a document turned up showing that one Gonçal Peris had died before 1433, while the other went on working. Gonzalo Pérez, the Castilian form of the name, usually refers to Gonçal Peris Sarrià.
He trained in the workshop of Pere Nicolau, a leading Valencian master around 1400, and painted altarpieces in the International Gothic style, the courtly gold-ground manner then shared across much of Europe. His panels went to towns well beyond Valencia, among them Rubielos de Mora in Aragon, where he painted a large altarpiece of the Life of the Virgin. The Altarpiece of Saint Barbara, made for the village of Puertomingalvo around 1410 to 1425, is now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. The last records of him are his will and his death in Valencia in 1451.
