The signed original photo by Yousuf Karsh, known as The Roaring Lion, was surreptitiously replaced with a print during a COVID lockdown, and nobody noticed it was missing for months.Yousuf Karsh
A famed original photograph of Winston Churchill, stolen from a luxury Ottawa hotel and replaced with a fake, has been discovered in Italy after two years of sleuthing by Ottawa police.
Yousuf Karsh’s photo of Britain’s wartime prime minister – which appears on the British five-pound note – was stolen from the Fairmont Château Laurier hotel during a COVID-19 lockdown.
The signed original photo, known as The Roaring Lion, was surreptitiously replaced with a print, and nobody noticed it was missing for months. Then in August, 2022, an eagle-eyed hotel maintenance worker spotted that the frame containing Karsh’s famous portrait did not match others on the wall.
The hotel swiftly sent Jerry Fielder, director of Karsh’s estate, a photo of the signature on the questionable print, which he identified immediately as a fake. The hotel was able to determine that the theft had taken place between Christmas Day, 2021, and Jan. 6, 2022.
Karsh’s portrait, taken in Ottawa in 1941, is one of the most recognizable photos of Churchill. Its theft from the wall of the Château Laurier sparked an international outcry.
But in a plot twist reminiscent of an art-heist movie, Ottawa police announced Wednesday that they had tracked down the portrait to Genoa. An unnamed individual living there had unwittingly bought it through Sotheby’s auction house in London, which is also understood to have been unaware of its dubious provenance.
The police said they have been working with Italy’s Carabinieri and the purchaser to ensure the photo’s safe return to Canada.
Arrangements have been made “to ceremoniously hand over the portrait to the Ottawa Police Service in Rome later this month. Once in Ottawa Police custody, the portrait will be ready for the last step of its journey home to the Fairmont Château Laurier, where it will once again be displayed as a notable historic portrait,” Ottawa police announced in a press release.
There was more: The thief had also been apprehended and, on April 25, charged with multiple offences, including forgery and “traffic in property or thing obtained by crime over $5,000.″
“With the assistance of international law enforcement agencies, Ottawa Police investigators identified and charged a 43-year-old man from Powassan, Ontario, for the theft and trafficking of The Roaring Lion portrait. His name is protected by a publication ban,” it said.
At the Fairmont Château Laurier, general manager Geneviève Dumas could barely contain her relief that the portrait, snatched from a wall two years ago, had been found.
“We are so excited about this news!!” she said in an e-mail.
“We are thrilled about the iconic Roaring Lion portrait returning to its rightful home at Fairmont Château Laurier. This portrait, captured by renowned Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh, is not only an irreplaceable work of art but also a significant piece of our hotel’s history,” she added, saying it was expected to arrive within weeks.
The Fairmont Château Laurier has already taken security precautions to prevent another heist.
“All portraits are now fully secured and armed. Once our precious portrait is back, it will be maximum secured so the public can enjoy it as Mr. Karsh would have liked for the world to see, without barriers or ‘fences,’” she said.
Karsh had a special fondness for the Château Laurier hotel. He held his first exhibition there in 1936, opening a photography studio there in 1972. He later moved into a suite with his wife, Estrellita, where they lived for 18 years. When he died in 2002, he left the hotel a clutch of signed original photographs including the portrait of Churchill.
The 1941 photograph, taken after the British prime minister had delivered a speech in Ottawa, shows him looking gruff and scowling against a wood-panelled backdrop in Parliament’s Centre Block. Churchill was puffing on a cigar when he told Karsh he could only take one photograph. The photographer feared the cigar could interfere with the shot and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Churchill to put it out.
Finally, he walked up to Churchill and took the cigar from his hand. “By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me,” the photographer later recalled. “It was at that instant that I took the photograph.”
Robert Wittman, who helped to establish the FBI’s art-crime team and who now works as a consultant, said he was an adviser on the investigation into the theft.
In an interview, he called the case very unusual in Canada and said it is “probably the biggest heist in the 21st century” in this country.
“The reason it is so important is that any time you lose a piece of cultural heritage, it means more than just money,” Mr. Wittman said.
“It’s actually the history, the heritage.”
With a report from Kristy Kirkup