His doctoral dissertation was completed under the supervision of Francis Haskell and concerned patronage and collecting of French paintings during the end of the Ancien Régime.
[3] Shortly thereafter, Bailey was awarded a fellowship in the Department of Paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
[4] Bailey moved to the United States to begin his curatorial career as Assistant Curator for European Painting and Sculpture before 1900 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he worked from 1985 to 1989.
[7] While at the Center, Bailey held at a residency at the Louvre, closely observing its director, Henri Loyrette.
[9] Two years later, Bailey moved back to New York to become the sixth director of the Morgan Library & Museum, succeeding William Griswold.