Mildred Archer OBE (28 December 1911 in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

– 4 February 2005) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

who specialized in 18th- and 19th-century art in British India. She was curator of Prints and Drawings at the India Office Library and wrote extensively on the collection and studies on them. Born Mildred Agnes Bell, she attended school in

. In 1930 she joined

St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon Saint, Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a hall for women; it ...

with a history scholarship. She met

Bill Archer William Reynolds Archer Jr. (born March 22, 1928) is a retired American lawyer and politician. Archer served two terms, from 1967 to 1971, in the Texas House of Representatives – changing from the Democratic to the Republican party in 1969 – ...

, who had been a friend of her brother at Cambridge. Bill had passed the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million ...

examination and was in the

School of Oriental Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury are ...

, London. Bill left for India in 1931 and the two were engaged just before he left. After marriage Bill worked in

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

for nearly a decade and on his return to England he became Keeper of Indian Art at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

and was a leading scholar of Indian court painting and the

Company style Company style, also known as Company painting or Patna painting (Hindi: ''kampani kalam'') is a term for a hybrid Indo-European style of paintings made in India by Indian artists, many of whom worked for European patrons in the East India Company ...

. Mildred Archer's curatorial career began in 1954 with the cataloguing of the East India Company's collection of paintings in the collection of the

India Office The India Office was a British government department established in London in 1858 to oversee the administration, through a Viceroy and other officials, of the Provinces of India. These territories comprised most of the modern-day nations of I ...

Library. It occupied her for 26 years. Other works included ''Natural History Drawings'' (1962), ''British Drawings'' (1969), ''Company Drawings'' (1972), ''Indian Popular Painting'' (1977) and finally (with Toby Falk) ''Indian Miniature Paintings'' (1981). In 1979 she wrote ''British Portraiture 1770-1825''. Her later publications included a study of the Daniell

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. It has also been used h ...

s of India (1980), the V&A exhibition catalogue ''India Observed'' (1982), and studies of William Simpson's Indian sketchbooks (1986) and the prints and Company paintings associated with James and William Fraser (1989). Her last book was ''India Served and Observed'' (1994). Her papers, together with those of her husband, are held by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

Publications

Books

Papers

* Archer, Mildred &

W.G. Archer William George Archer, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, OBE (1907-1979) was a British civil servant and art historian, and later museum curator. Career Archer was born on 1 February 1907, and studied first history at Emmanuel Colle ...

(1955) Natural history paintings. In Indian painting for the British 1770–1880, pp. 91–98. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

References

External links

Obituary in The Telegraph

Obituary in The Guardian

{{DEFAULTSORT:Archer, Mildred English art historians Women art historians English curators Officers of the Order of the British Empire 1911 births 2005 deaths Historians of Indian art British people in colonial India British women curators