Francisco Perez Sierra

Florero1690, oil on canvas (62 x 43 cm), Madrid, Palacio Real.

Francisco Pérez Sierra (c. 1627-1709) was a Spanish Baroque painter.

Born in Naples he was, according to Antonio Palomino, the son of a Spanish soldier married to a daughter of the governor of Calabria. According to the same biographer, he was a disciple of Aniello Falcone in Naples and of Juan de Toledo in Madrid, while serving as a page to Don Diego de la Torre, court secretary for Italian affairs.

Little is known about his painting, apart from what Palomino tells about him, who assures that he was an expert in painting battles, countries and cabins, as well as making some religious works, among which he stood out one of San Francisco de Paula for the disappeared convent of La Victoria in Madrid. He also painted in fresco and tempera in collaboration with Francisco Rizi and Juan Carreño de Miranda in the Huerta de Sora, property of the Marquis de Eliche and must have achieved a certain prestige as a painter of feigned perspectives for altars and other ephemeral architecture destined for festive solemnities.. Of all this, only one Immaculate Conception signed in 1655 is preserved in the convent of the Discalced Trinitarians in Madrid, a work of complex composition with strong resonances of Rizi, also manifested in two oil paintings owned by the Prado Museum, from from the convent of Santa María de los Ángeles in Madrid: Saint Anne leading the Virgin (deposited in San Jerónimo el Real) and San Joaquín (Museum of Fine Arts of Granada).

Palomino, who knew him, assures that after obtaining through Diego de la Torre the position of general agent of the Prisons of Spain and having a considerable estate, he applied himself for pleasure "to paint flowers and fruits from nature (on the occasion of a very polished garden that he had in his house) which was on Calle de las Infantas". A couple of vases, attributed to him, property of the National Heritage, can serve as testimony of his work in this area, in which he deserved the praise of his contemporaries. He died at an advanced age in Madrid, in 1709.