use HTML::TagParser;

my $html = qq[
  <blockquote>
  <p><b>Joos van Cleve</b> - Lucretia (detail)</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>beautiful</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>indeed I am</p>
  <footer>
];

my $parser = HTML::TagParser->new( $html );
print $parser->getElementsByTagName( "footer" )->previousSibling->innerText;