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Stolen portrait of Winston Churchill that was swapped with forgery returned to Canadian hotel | World News


A stolen portrait of Sir Winston Churchill that was swapped with a forgery during the pandemic has returned to its rightful place in a Canadian hotel.

Police said The Roaring Lion portrait – which appears on the UK’s £5 note – was stolen from the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa at some time between Christmas Day 2021 and 6 January 2022 and replaced.

The swap was only uncovered eight months later when a hotel worker noticed the frame was not hung properly and looked different from the others.

The new polymer ..5 note featuring Sir Winston Churchill, is unveiled at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday June 2, 2016. The new fiver will be issued in September, and in a break from the current paper notes it will be printed on polymer, a thin flexible plastic film, which is seen as more durable and more secure. See PA story MONEY Banknote. Photo credit should read: Joe Giddens/PA Wire
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The portrait is depicted on the £5 note. Pic: PA

The portrait had been sold through an auction house in London to a private buyer and ended up in Rome, where two Canadian police detectives retrieved it.

Both seller and buyer were unaware that it had been stolen, police said.

Officers have now charged a man from the town of Powassan, Ontario, with forgery, theft and trafficking. That case is before the courts.

Genevieve Dumas, the hotel’s general manager, unveiled the portrait in a ceremony on Friday.

“I can tell you that it is armed, locked, secured,” Ms Dumas said.

“It’s not moving,” she said, adding that staff accidentally triggered the alarm on Thursday while they hung it up.

Fairmont Chateau Laurier general manager Genevieve Dumas stands in front of Yousuf Karsh's 1941 portrait of Winston Churchill following its unveiling at the hotel, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
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The Fairmont Chateau Laurier’s Genevieve Dumas stands in front of the portrait. Pic: AP

The portrait is one of the most famous depictions of the wartime prime minister.

Renowned photographer Yousuf Karsh snapped the picture in 1941 just after Sir Winston delivered a rousing wartime address to Canadian politicians.

Towards the end of his life, Mr Karsh signed and gifted the portrait to the hotel, where he had lived and worked.

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Nicola Cassinelli, a lawyer in Genoa who bought the stolen artwork, sent a message to the unveiling ceremony.

“The magnificent photograph by Yousuf Karsh captures in the eyes of Sir Winston Churchill the pride, the anger and the strength of the free world. And it represents, better than any other, the desire for the triumph of good over evil,” he said.

Despite the “extraordinary privilege” of having the portrait hang in his home, The Roaring Lion belongs to the public, Mr Cassinelli said.



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