[1] He is Professor Emeritus at Solent University and Honorary Professor at University College London (School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS) – Centre for Early Modern Exchanges London).
[2] He is an authority on the evolution of the Grand Tour, Anglo-Italian cultural relations, the history of collecting, Inigo Jones and the legacy of ancient Egypt.
[5] Chaney was educated at Leighton Park School, Reading, Ealing School of Art and subsequently gained a first class degree in History of Art at Reading University before completing an MPhil and PhD at the Warburg Institute, University of London.
[citation needed] From 1985 to 1990 he was the Shuffrey Research Fellow in Architectural History at Lincoln College, Oxford before working for English Heritage as historian to the London region and lecturing in the History of Art at Oxford Brookes University.
[7] In 2014 he was appointed Visiting Professor of Art History at the New College of the Humanities and January–March 2015 Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence.