To view only the Archived emails in your gmail, do this;
1. Click on All Mail from the left (If you can't see the All Mail, goto your Google Gmail Settings > Labels tab > click 'Show' next to 'All Mail' and save your setting)
2. From your All Mail list, you can see Inbox label infront of the email -these are emails in your Inbox folder. If you've archived an email the Inbox label will be removed which indicates it could be in Archived/Sent Items/Notes, obviously the email you archived won't be in Notes or Sent Items if you checked that earlier, therefore if you look at the email it has to be the one in the Archive.