A wonderful find, an ironstone sauce boat with French ink blue transferware featuring peacocks perching on boughs of blossom. There is a peacock on either side of the bowl and on each end of the attached saucer. 
 
French saucieres are useful for displaying flowers on a mantle or for narrower shelves.
 
Made by Gien and stamped with their smart coat of arms on the base, this dates the design, called 'Paon' or peacock in French, from 1886 and is stamped 'Terre de Fer', French for ironstone.
 
The ironstone has developed a lightly buttered colour with age and is crazed. There are some tiny old nibbles around the rim and hairline cracks on the inside to the glaze.
 
It measures 9.5" long and 4.5" high.