Robert Bagley

Robert W. Bagley
Nationality	American
Education	Harvard, University of Chicago
Employer	Princeton University
Known for	Chinese Art & Archaeology

Robert Bagley is a Chinese art historian and archaeologist in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University.

Specialization

Bagley specialises in pre-Han art and archaeology with other academic interests, including ornament, archaeometallurgy and ancient metal technology, archaic Chinese jades, comparative study of the first civilizations and the first writing systems, and the archaeology of ancient Chinese music.

Education

A.B. (1967), A.M. (1973), Ph.D. (1981), Harvard University.

M.S. (1969), University of Chicago.

Publications

Books and Book Chapters

• Max Loehr and the Study of Chinese Bronzes: Style and Classification in the History of Art. Ithaca, NY: Cornell East Asia Series, 2008.
• “Anyang Writing and the Origin of the Chinese Writing System.” Chapter 7 (pp. 190–249) in Stephen D. Houston, ed., The First Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Shang Archaeology.” Chapter 3 (pp. 124–231) in Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, eds., The Cambridge History of Ancient China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
• “Les techniques métallurgiques” (pp. 37–44) and “Les vases rituels au début de l’âge du bronze” (pp. 57–64) in Rites et festins de la Chine antique: Bronzes du musée de Shanghai. Paris: Musée Cernuschi, 1998.
• Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.

Contributions to Reference Books

• Entries on Chinese archaeology and Chinese metallurgy in The Dictionary of Art. London: Macmillan, 1996.
• Entries on metallurgy and Chinese archaeology in Ruth Whitehouse, ed., The Macmillan Dictionary of Archaeology (London: Macmillan, 1983; 2nd ed. 1985). Published in the United States as The Facts on File Dictionary of Archaeology.

Articles

• “Interpreting Prehistoric Designs.” Chapter 1 in Paul Taylor, ed., Iconography Without Texts. London: Warburg Institute Colloquia 13, 2008, pp. 43–68.
• “Ornament, Representation, and Imaginary Animals in Bronze Age China.” Arts Asiatiques 61 (2006), pp. 17–29.
• “Quatre conférences sur l’invention dans l’art de la Chine ancienne.” Summary of lectures given at the École pratique des Hautes Études (IV e Section), Paris, May–June 2003. École pratique des Hautes Études, Section des Sciences historiques et philologiques, Livret-Annuaire 18 (2002-2003) (Paris: 2004), pp. 366–9.
• Review of Wu Hung’s Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 88.1 (June 1998), pp. 221–56.