decorated paper / "domino" paper
Explanation:
I have been reading the sources cited in these questions, and a number of others, with great interest, and have been considering several possible terms in English. I think there is more than one option, and I shall mention the alternatives, as I see them, below.
I like to start with the Trésor:
"dominoterie:
Fabrication et commerce de papiers imprimés et coloriés (appelés domino) utilisés notamment pour les jeux (loto, oie, etc.)."
http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/dominoterie
"domino(3):
Sorte de papier peint et imprimé de diverses couleurs, dont on se sert pour différents jeux, tels que jeu de dame, jeu de l'oie, jeu de loto (Bouillet 1859)."
http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/domino
Add to these the excellent references you have already given us, notably this one: http://www.bmi.agglo-epinal.fr/EXPLOITATION/le-papier-domino... , and it is clear that we are talking about paper printed and also possibly painted in various colours and used for various purposes, including games, book endpapers and wallpaper.
First I want to say briefly, and in the friendliest spirit, why I have not agreed with the options already proposed here and in the other two questions:
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/french_to_english/art_arts_crafts_...
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/french_to_english/art_arts_crafts_...
First: stencil paper. This is based on a British Museum page on a stencilled poster which is "a product of the dominoterie trade".
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/coll...
However, it does not follow that the term means stencilled paper, and it clearly doesn't; dominoterie can involve stencilling, and apparently often did in earlier times, but it doesn't have to, and it's not limited to stencilling even when the latter is used. It won't do as a translation.
As for "painted paper", the sources cited in support of this do not persuade me that this term can properly be applied to printed paper in English, and most papier dominoté was evidently (woodblock) printed. It's true that in the 1773 Act limiting the import of "painted paper", cited by Helen in the "dominoterie" question, the term seems to embrace what it calls "all paper, printed, painted, or stained"; but this is not entirely clear, and in any case I don't think it's true in modern English. On the contrary, painted paper in English seems to mean paper that is literally painted, by hand, not printed. There is a potential source of confusion here in the fact that "papier peint", in French, means wallpaper, even if not actually painted (it hardly even is in modern times). When Littré defines dominoterie as "autrement papier peint", I think that's what he means, not that it's painted rather than printed.
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Well now, after all that, what are the terms that can embrace all that "papier dominoté" involves? It's quite a broad term. I have considered four. Two of them are suggested by a very useful source, Richard J. Wolfe's book Marbled Paper: Its History, Techniques, and Patterns (U. of Pennsylvania Press, 1990). On pp. 32-34, in his chapter on Marbling in France, Wolfe discusses "The Dominotier and the Marbreur", making it clear at once that the latter is a subset of the former: in other words, papier dominoté includes but is not limited to marbled paper:
"The roles of the dominotier and of the subspecialists such as the tapissier en papier, dominotier-imagier, marbreur, and others in the production of colored paper in France at this early time can best be determined by considering their descriptions in the Diderot-D'Alembert encyclopedia [...]
The making of fancy papers or dominos, as they initially were called, was already underway in France in a primitive way late in the sixteenth century [...]"
https://books.google.es/books?id=kY92BMFNFjUC&pg=PA203&lpg=P...
I feel though, that "coloured paper" could be misleading, because it could well be understood to mean paper of one uniform colour. I like "fancy paper", and there was a company called The Fancy Paper Company which made marbled paper:
http://www.ligatus.org.uk/node/630#
However, although it's an option, I don't think it's formal enough, and it doesn't have the right tone.
Another option worth considering is actually domino paper, mentioned at the end of the answer to the previous question cited by Ellen in the "dominoterie" question:
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/french_to_english/art_arts_crafts_...
It's in the Random House dictionary, defined as:
"a marbleized or figured decorative paper, used for wallpaper, end papers, etc., printed from wood blocks and colored by hand"
http://dictionary.infoplease.com/domino-paper
and it's used in some places, notably here, in a page on the Cooper-Hewitt collection at the Smithsonian:
"This is a Domino paper. It is dated ca. 1750 and we acquired it in 1928. Its medium is block-printed and stenciled on handmade paper. [...]
Domino papers were printed on single sheets of paper by the guild of Dominotiers in France during the 18th century. The original intent of domino papers was for lining trunks and chests of drawers, and they were also used as book end pages. But people saw the decorative aspect of the designs and began pasting them to their walls as they were less expensive and more available than other forms of decoration. These were printed by woodblock with the color accents painted on using stencils."
https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18316363/
It has the notable attraction of specificity; but it's not widely used. However, I do think it's the best alternative to my first choice.
This is decorated paper, which is a well established term of art and accurately covers all this term includes. It is a headword in the very useful database of the Ligatus Research Centre (on bookbinding) at the University of the Arts London, and under this heading a number of items on "papier dominoté" are listed:
http://www.ligatus.org.uk/taxonomy/term/250#
It is also used in this British Library Journal article on "The Olga Hirsch Collection of Decorated Papers", which includes a number of examples of dominoterie:
http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/pdfs/bljarticle1981.pdf
I really think it's the best term to use here. I see that it's also proposed in the previous question on dominoterie, but I reached this conclusion independently.
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Note added at 1 day23 hrs (2015-10-24 08:37:45 GMT)
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I'm a bit reluctant to add to an already very long answer, but at the risk of seeming recalcitrant I feel compelled, in the light of Helen's response, to explain my position more fully than the comment box will allow. My object is simply to clarify which English terms are suitable here.
I still see no clear evidence that "painted paper" is a generic term in English for the kind of decorative coloured paper, mostly woodblock-printed, that we are considering here. On the contrary, it is nearly always clear that it means paper that is literally hand-painted. The possible exceptions all seem to refer to wallpaper. In French, the term papier peint, originally referring to hand-painted Chinese wallpaper, came to be applied from the late eighteenth century to home-produced printed wallpaper, and still is (as is papel pintado in Spanish, by the way). The evidence I have seen suggests that "painted paper" may sometimes have been used in this way in English (though it's difficult to be sure whether the "painted paper" mentioned in the 1700 Boston reference, for example, was printed or hand-painted), but plainly it didn't become the established everyday term for printed wallpaper as papier peint did in French. Nor as an academic historical term: the academic in Helen’s second additional source has worked on Chinese (hand)painted papers and the term occurs in the title of her book-chapter '"Painted paper of Pekin": eighteenth-century Chinese papers in 1920s Britain', but that's the only instance on her page.
The Grove dictionary, which is indeed an authoritative source, seems to confirm that this is not a generic term in the decorative arts. It has no article on "painted paper". I can only find one instance of the term in it, in the wallpaper article: "methods of adhering the flock to painted paper were also developed" (II, p. 535). This refers to the seventeenth century, and it is quite possible (I would say likely) that "painted" means hand-painted here. Otherwise, in Grove's wallpaper article, the word "painted" clearly has this literal meaning. Three types of wallpaper are distinguished: Painted, Printed and Flock. Under "Painted", hand-painting is discussed (explaining that it was a technique "mainly used in the Western world in combination with printing processes"). Hand-printing (woodblock and stencilling) is discussed under the "Printed" heading (II, pp. 534-35). If "painted paper" were a generic term for wallpaper, you would expect to find it here. In any case, papier dominoté was not only, or even primarily, wallpaper.
Conversely, Grove does have an article on "Decorative paper", which it defines as "paper decorated by marbling, block-printing, embossing, stencilling and other means", used in the West for "the end-papers and covers of books [...], for lining drawers, cupboards and boxes, for wrapping presents and for stationery" (II, p. 186).
https://books.google.es/books?hl=es&id=i3Od9bcGus0C&q="Paper...
This surely fits papier dominoté pretty well. I don't think it really matters whether we call it "decorative", as Grove does, or "decorated", as the British Library does.
| Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 12:45
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 48
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