Recovered portrait of Winston Churchill unveiled in Ottawa nearly 3 years after brazen theft
'I’m just beyond proud,' says hotel spokesperson at ceremony marking return of famed photo
Nearly three years after its brazen theft, The Roaring Lion — grimace and all — is finally back where it belongs on the wall of the Fairmont Château Laurier hotel in Ottawa.
"It looks so beautiful," hotel general manager Geneviève Dumas told CBC News on Wednesday, after it had been rehung. "I'm just very, very happy that this part of Canadian heritage is back home."
The iconic photo of the late former British prime minister Winston Churchill is one of the world's most famous portraits and is considered a Canadian treasure.
It was taken by celebrated Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh in 1941, shortly after Churchill had given a wartime speech on Parliament Hill. It depicts Churchill glaring into the camera — as Karsh would often later recount, it was because he had yanked Churchill's beloved cigar from his fingers moments before pressing the shutter button.
The image came to be known as The Roaring Lion because it symbolized British wartime resoluteness. It's now the face of the Bank of England's £5 note and has been published in countless places worldwide for decades.
Karsh himself later lived at the Château, and in 1998 he gifted the hotel with a print of The Roaring Lion, which hung in the hotel's Reading Room, just off the main lobby, for years.
But sometime between Christmas Day 2021 and Jan. 6, 2022, while Ottawa was in a COVID-19 lockdown and as the hotel was effectively empty — although still open — the portrait was stolen and replaced on the wall with a framed fake, which even included a forged Karsh signature.
The crime went unnoticed until the following August, when a hotel staff member noticed something amiss with the portrait, leading to a closer inspection and the realization there had been a heist.
The theft immediately brought international headlines and led Ottawa Police Service investigators on a hunt spanning multiple countries on two continents, until they tracked it down as having been purchased through an auction house in London by a man in Genoa, Italy.
The buyer had no idea he'd acquired a cherished piece of Canadian history — let alone a stolen one — and when contacted by police, he quickly agreed to give it back. It was handed to Canadian authorities at the Canadian Embassy in Rome in September.
Boosted security
The portrait was then shipped to Ottawa where it was cleaned up, reframed and on Wednesday finally rehung in its original place in the Reading Room just to the side of the main lobby.
The recovered portrait is also now well-protected in its place, with a vastly strengthened security apparatus.
"It's like Fort Knox," said Dumas. "It's not going to move."
In fact, when the delivery team put the newly framed photo back on the wall Wednesday morning, they accidentally set off the new alarm system, causing brief panic among hotel security staff.
"As soon as someone touches it or moves it," said Dumas, "it now triggers the alarm." And, she said, "It's loud."
A curtain covering the portrait was lifted Friday morning during a special invitation-only ceremony, which marked the portrait's official return to the hotel.
"We've been dreaming about this … the fact that it's here, the goosebumps are back," said Fairmont Château Laurier spokesperson Lori Wagner at the ceremony Friday. "I'm just beyond proud."
Going on full display
The Reading Room itself is in the final stages of a months-long renovation and won't reopen to the public until Monday, when the portrait will go on full display for everyone.
Those who go for a look will notice, on the wall right next to the rehung photo, the original brass plaque identifying Karsh's masterpiece.
It was left in that spot throughout the time the portrait was missing to highlight the empty space where the photo had once been. Dumas has always said she left it there in the hope The Roaring Lion would one day return.
And now it has.
All of this unfolded as Jeffrey Wood, a 43-year-old man from Powassan, Ont., awaits the next steps in the proceedings against him on this. Wood was arrested in April and charged with a number of crimes, including theft, forgery and trafficking. His next court appearance is set for March 3 in Ottawa.
An email from CBC News to Wood's lawyer on Wednesday was not returned.
How did it get out of the hotel?
Ottawa police have cited public tips, forensic evidence and international co-operation as helping lead them to the portrait's recovery. But to date, they have said little else about their investigation or their theory on how the portrait was pulled from the wall and secreted out of the hotel.
Back in 2021, the portrait had special bolts locking it in place and requiring specific knowledge and unique tools to undo. And while investigators were eventually able to recover the photo, it's still unclear how the crime was committed.
Indeed, when Dumas studied the freshly rehung portrait on Wednesday, she was struck by how large it is and yet again puzzled over the story behind the theft.
"I was like, 'Oh my god, the portrait is so big,'" she said. "How could someone leave with this — unnoticed?
"I still want to know that part of the story. The how."
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