Colonnette

A colonnette is a small slender column, usually decorative, which supports a beam or lintel. Colonnettes have also been used to refer to a feature of furnishings such as a dressing table and case clock, and even studied by archeologists in Roman ceramics. Architectural colonnettes are typically found in "a group in a parapet, balustrade, or cluster pier". The term columnette has also been used to refer to thin columns. In Khmer art, the colonnette designates in particular the columns which frame the doors of the sanctuaries and which are one of the dating elements of their style. Summits of complexity were attained in the development of the Khmer colonnette, according to Philippe Stern:There a few designs which present, as well as the khmer colonnette, a continuity of evolution, the persistence of a direction, which, though it may weaken at times, is taken up again each time.

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