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 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.
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.
