A Thief Replaced This Iconic Churchill Portrait With a Fake. Two Years Later, the Original Has Been Recovered

After a two-year search, authorities have finally recovered an original print of The Roaring Lion, the famous photograph of Winston Churchill staring defiantly into the camera.

For many years, the portrait had hung at the Fairmont Château Laurier hotel in Ottawa, Canada. In 2022, staffers realized that it had been replaced with a copy—complete with a forged signature.

The 1941 image by Armenian photographer Yousuf Karsh appeared on the cover of Life magazine and is now featured on Britain’s five-pound note. Karsh took the photograph after Churchill delivered a speech to members of Canada’s parliament to thank them for their war efforts.

“My portrait of Winston Churchill changed my life,” Karsh, who died in 2002, once 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.”

Legend has it that Churchill only gave the photographer “one shot” to take the image that would go on to cement his career. However, the politician would not let go of his cigar. Karsh plucked it from Churchill’s mouth without warning—causing the prime minister to make a stern and serious expression.

“He looked so belligerent he could have devoured me,” Karsh said. “It was at that instant that I took the photograph.”

Karsh, who has photographed many important public figures including Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, Elizabeth Taylor, and Elizabeth II, had permanently loaned his photograph of Churchill to the hotel. He and his wife, Estrellita Karsh, lived at the château for many years. It was also the site of his first exhibition.

The hotel first realized something was wrong when an employee saw that the portrait’s frame was different from others that Karsh had given to the hotel. When staffers looked back at photographs that guests had taken with the image, it became clear that the forgery had been hanging for about eight months.

Now, after a long investigation, officials report that the image has resurfaced in Italy. The picture will soon be on its way back to Canada.

“I thought this would never be recovered,” Jerry Fielder, the director of Karsh’s estate, tells the New York Times’ Ian Austen. “There didn’t seem to be many leads.”

Estrellita Karsh has “been following all of the progress of the investigation,” Fielder adds. “She was just thrilled that it’s now official that it’s coming home.”

According to a statement from the Ottawa Police, an Italian buyer purchased the photograph via a Sotheby’s auction in 2022. However, because the sale took place before the portrait was reported missing, all parties involved believed the transaction was legal.

“The information we were able to obtain from Sotheby’s led to the identity of the seller, and we were able to investigate him,” Akiva Geller, an Ottawa Police detective, tells the Globe and Mail’s Marie Woolf. The buyer, who had hung the portrait in his living room, agreed to return it to the hotel.

Authorities have arrested 43-year-old Jeffrey Iain James Wood from Powassan, Ontario, and charged him with crimes including theft, forgery and art trafficking.

“With the help of public tips, forensic analysis and international cooperation, investigators tracked down the individual responsible for the theft,” says the Ottawa Police in the statement. “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.”

Julia Binswanger | READ MORE

Julia Binswanger is a freelance arts and culture reporter based in Chicago. Her work has been featured in WBEZ, Chicago magazine, Rebellious magazine and PC magazine.