19th Century Spanish

Born in Zaragoza on 10 January 1827. After first taking lessons in his hometown of Zaragoza, Gonzalvo y Pérez furthered his education at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, whose records show that he enrolled there in the 1845-1846 academic year. During this formative period, he frequented the studio of Federico de Madrazo (1815-1894) and in 1856 he submitted four works to the first , returning again two years later, when he won a Third Class Medal.

This marked the beginning of his growing prestige and recognition among critics, which led to a rise in commissions both in Spain and abroad. Throughout practically his whole working life, he was a regular participant at the National Exhibitions, where he won first class medals consecutively in 1860, 1862 and 1864, the year when he was appointed Commander of the .

Spurred on by this success, he submitted works to major international events: the London International Exhibition (1862); the Bayonne Franco-Spanish Exhibition (1864), where he was awarded the Silver Medal; the World Exhibitions of Vienna (1873) and Philadelphia (1876), winning the Arts Medal at both; the Munich Exhibition (1876), where he obtained a Gold Medal; and the Paris World Exhibition, where Gonzalvo won a Bronze Medal in 1867 and the Gold Medal in 1878.

Also worth underscoring is his work as a teacher. In 1860 he began to teach Perspective and Landscape at the Cadiz Academy of Fine Arts, and three years later Perspective at the Special School of Painting and Sculpture in Madrid, the beginnings of what would prove to be a fruitful academic vocation.

At the same time, he developed a prolific artistic career under the patronage of the Duke of Fernán Núñez and the Infanta Isabella de Borbón. His constant trips abroad to visit cities like Constantinople, Rome, Venice and Vienna were instrumental in enriching his painting.

Pablo Gonzalvo died in Madrid on 18 November 1896. His Tratado de perspectiva, the treatise he had been working on since 1884 and which was to be his great contribution to the theory of art, was left unfinished. Three of his paintings went on display at the National Exhibition one year after his demise in what could be seen as a posthumous tribute that evinces the esteem he was held in by the official art circles of the time.