A console is more specifically an “S”-shaped scroll bracket in the classical tradition, with the upper or inner part larger than the lower or outer. Keystones are also often in the form of consoles. Whereas “corbel” is rarely used outside architecture, “console” is widely used for furniture, as in console table, and other decorative arts where the motif appears.
The word “corbel” comes from old French and derives from the Latin corbellus, a diminutive of corvus (raven), which refers to the beak-like appearance. Similarly, the French refer to a bracket-corbel, usually a load-bearing internal feature, as a corbeau (crow).
In architecture a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. It is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the structure. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a “tassel” or a “bragger” in the UK. The technique of corbeling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or parapet, has been used since Neolithic, or New Stone Age, times. It is common in Medieval Architecture and in the Scottish baronial style as well as in the vocabulary of classical architecture, such as the modillions of a Corinthian cornice, Hindu temple architecture and in ancient Chinese architecture.
Above Weylin’s door, you can see the main console inbetween the decorative Corinthian cornice and under the land mark Williamsburgh Saving Bank sign.
The Weylin Team