A colonnette is a small slender column,[1] 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,[2][3] and even studied by archeologists in Roman ceramics.[4] Architectural colonnettes are typically found in "a group in a parapet, balustrade, or cluster pier".[5] The term columnette has also been used to refer to thin columns.[6] 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.[7] Summits of complexity were attained in the development of the Khmer colonnette, according to Philippe Stern:[8]
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.