Sir Joseph Archer Crowe KCMG (25 October 1825, London – 6 September 1896, Gamburg an der Tauber, today Werbach, Germany[1]) was an English journalist, consular official and art historian, whose volumes of the History of Painting in Italy, co-written with the Italian critic Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (1819–1897), stand at the beginning of disciplined modern art history writing in English, being based on chronologies of individual artists' development and the connoisseurship of identifying artist's individual manners or "hands".

Shortly after his birth the family moved to France, where Crowe's childhood was spent, mostly in Paris,[2] where his father was based as the correspondent of the London Morning Chronicle;[3] his home was the centre of a liberal and artistic circle that mixed French and expatriates.

[2] Through the influence of Lord John Russell, Crowe was appointed consul-general for Saxony in 1860, and in this capacity he represented French interests at Leipzig during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.

[2] In 1872 he was appointed consul-general for Westphalia and the Rhenish Provinces in Düsseldorf and in 1880 commercial attaché to the embassies at Berlin and Vienna.

The next year, while travelling between Berlin and Vienna, Crowe made a chance acquaintance with a young Italian art student, Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle.

A reprint of the original edition, brought up to date by annotations by Edward Hutton, was published by Dent in three volumes in 1909.