China Has an Ancient Tradition of Building Beautiful Paper Kites
Conservation experts preserve and stabilize a fragile aerial antique.
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Some of the National Air and Space Museum’s oldest artifacts were likely never flown: Chinese kites that were exhibited at Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park in 1876 as part of the World’s Fair and Centennial Exposition. China had sent dozens of items for display, including 43 paper kites. These superb examples of Chinese early flight craftsmanship were then donated to the Smithsonian Institution, which had been established in 1846.
In 1985, 20 of the kites, including one depicting a girl wearing traditional Chinese attire (above), were officially transferred to the Museum. The light construction required for kites to fly makes them prone to deterioration from light, heat, moisture, and air pollution. In 2017, a project to preserve the Chinese kites was initiated at the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in northern Virginia.
The girl kite is made from a bamboo frame that supports short-fiber paper tinted with plant- and mineral-based pigments. Over the years, the paper had become brittle—with patches of faded pigment. The conservation treatment, which took several weeks, started by gently vacuuming environmental dust and dirt and carefully removing tape that had been used to mend tears in the paper decades earlier. After the kite’s surfaces had been stabilized, the back of the kite was reinforced with Tengujo, a type of Japanese paper that is thin but strong.
The Museum’s kite collection didn’t end with the acquisition of the 20 Chinese kites. Tom Crouch, a curator emeritus in the Museum’s aeronautics department, oversaw the kite collection until his retirement in 2018. “I loved the kite collection,” says Crouch. “I collected a good number of kites after seeing them fly at the Museum’s past kite festivals. My scholarly focus has been the birth of flight, and I find it difficult to imagine the invention of the airplane without beginning with kites.”
Diane Tedeschi is Air & Space Quarterly's senior editor.
This article, originally titled "Aerial Antiques," is from the Spring 2026 issue of Air & Space Quarterly, the National Air and Space Museum's signature magazine that explores topics in aviation and space, from the earliest moments of flight to today. Explore the full issue.
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