. >> h didou acquire it, where d itome om. >> it came from the carrie welch collection. a great pioneer in our field, he was sheila's professor at harvard and i was a-- later student of his. he was very influenced us all in our love and understanding of this material. and he also had a great private collection which recently went on sale after he passed away last year. so anyway, we were able to make a couple of extraordinary acquisitions at this sale and this is one of them. it's a dagger, the hilt is composed of a sort of interlocked animals in a kind of hunting motif. you have a dragon attack a feline attacking a deer and a bird way tiny snake in its mouth and all beautifully designed, it balances in your hand wonderfulfully and looks perfectly matched at the bottom. the blade is amazing but the iconnography of those figures is also fascinating because in the late 16th century, the decan being the south central part of india where this dagger wasmade, you had the coming together of influences from iran, turkey, europe and then the great indiana tradition of great an p