[2] In 1944 Chen and his wife Lucy Chao were both awarded humanities fellowships by the Rockefeller Foundation to study at the University of Chicago in the United States.

[1] Chen traveled around the United States, as well as making trips to Canada and Europe studying both private and public collections of ancient Chinese bronzes.

His study, with descriptions of over 850 bronze vessels, was turned into a draft for a book, possibly to be published in the United States.

[citation needed] The book was eventually published in China in 1962 under the title Our country’s Shang and Zhou Bronzes Looted by American Imperialists, edited by the Chinese Institute of Archaeology.

Before his problems with the Chinese authorities Chen published in 1956 the work A comprehensive study of the divination inscriptions from the Ruins of Yin.

The inscriptions, made on oracle bones at Yin, the last Shang capital near today's Anyang (Henan), were recognized at the time (and, largely, still are) as the earliest examples of Chinese writing.

[3] His life and achievements became known to wider audience outside China with the publication in 2006 of Peter Hessler’s book Oracle Bones.

However, after the deaths of the couple, Chao's brother-in-law Zhao Jingxin refused to donate the collection, instead selling it to the museum.