Yu-chih Lai

Academia Sinica (Taiwan)

Burke Fellow in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage in Japan and Italy

Chinese Baimiao painting and European drawing at the Qing Dynasty court

2024–2025: Fall

Yu-chih Lai is an art historian specialized in Chinese art. Her two fields of research are Shanghai art in the 19th century, and the globalized visual and material culture of the Manchu Chinese court in the 18th century. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from Yale University and is an associate researcher in the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

She has received many important grants, fellowships, and visiting positions, including: Member of the Institute for Advanced Study; Foreign Researcher of the Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia at The University of Tokyo: Heinz Goetze Visiting Professor for Chinese Art History at Heidelberg University; Post-doctoral Fellowship at the J. Paul Getty Center; and Jane and Morgan Whitney Art History Fellowship at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Currently she is working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Visual Governance: Art, Knowledge, and Politics in the 18th-Century Qing Court.

Website: https://sinica.academia.edu/UserDetailaspxuserID119mid16tmid2