Nasheman -e Zil-e Ilahi and the Orpheus panel:

 

In the centre of the back wall of the Diwan-e Aam is a 21 feet wall with 318 panels that depict the famous Orpheus legend.
Orpheus was a Greek prophet, a legendary musician and poet who could charm all living things and even stones. In this panel he is shown playing the lute, while a lion, a leopard, a deer, a dog and a hare sit at his feet, listening in complete rapture. The occurrence of this panel as a backdrop to the Mughal throne is deliberate as it approximates the legendary throne of Solomon, the prophet king and ideal ruler on whom birds and beasts sat in peaceful attendance. [Ebba Koch]
Its 318 panels, said to be the work of European jeweller Austin de Bordeaux, with various exquisite carvings of birds and beasts made in inlay work are placed in a special marble recess that measures 7 yards x 2.5 yards. Its artistry is confounding for the human mind.
Beresford, in his book, The Delhi Guide, describes it before the 1857 Uprising and says it was an 8-feet panel with precious stones also embedded in it.
In September 1857, after the fall of Delhi, many treasures from the Red Fort were looted. This panel was one of them.
It was appropriated by Captain John Jones and sold by him to the British government for 500 pounds. They placed it in the South Kensington Museum.
Sir John Marshall reports in the Archaeological Survey Annual Report 1902–03 that it was hoped that the plaque would be restored in time for the Delhi Durbar (Lord Curzon’s Darbar of 1903), but it arrived too late to be in time for that. It wS installed shortly after the durbar.
He also adds that the panels ‘have now been replaced behind the throne, and many other panels have also been cleaned of the lac with which they were covered, and their mutilated surfaces re-polished.

Photo from the time that there was no plexiglass around it

Excerpt from: “Shahjahanabad: The Living City of Old Delhi”
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