The portrait of Churchill by Yousuf Karsh, the acclaimed Canadian-Armenian portraitist, was displayed along with some of his other work in the hotel where Karsh used to live. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
An investigation is underway into the heist of an iconic Winston Churchill portrait that was mysteriously stolen and replaced with a copy.
The 1941 Roaring Lion photograph was taken from the Fairmont Château Laurier, a hotel in Ottawa, Canada.
The portrait of Churchill by Yousuf Karsh, the acclaimed Canadian-Armenian portraitist, was displayed along with some of his other work in the hotel where Karsh used to live.
A hotel staff member noticed something suspicious upon noticing the frame on the photograph did not match the other five portraits in the room.
The hotel then contacted Jerry Fielder who oversees Karsh’s estate, to assess the signature on the photo.
“I’ve seen that signature for 43 years. So it took me just one second to know that someone had tried to copy it,” Fielder said.
“It was a fake.”
The hotel is asking anyone with information to contact the Ottawa police who have now begun investigating.
“We are deeply saddened by this brazen act,” said Geneviève Dumas, the hotel general manager.
“The hotel is incredibly proud to house this stunning Karsh collection, which was securely installed in 1998.”
The photograph was snapped by Karsh in Ottawa after Churchill delivered a speech on World War II to the Canadian parliament in 1941.
In 2016, the image of the portrait was put on the back of the British five-pound note.
In a passage from his website Karsh said, “I knew after I had taken it that it was an important picture, but I could hardly have dreamed that it would become one of the most widely reproduced images in the history of photography”.
It is common for guests to take photos with the portrait, so Château Laurier asked people with any photos to send them in.
The portrait can be compared in the photos by investigators to determine when the swap to the fake was made.
It is believed the portrait was stolen and replaced with the decoy between Christmas Day 2021 and January 6, 2022.
