Winston Churchill portrait stolen, says Fairmont Château Laurier
- Employees at the Fairmont Château Laurier in Canada noticed that a famous portrait of former British prime minister Winston Churchill was not hanging properly.
- They quickly realized it was a fake, switched to the real thing, and an investigation was launched.
- Photographer Yousuf Karsh believes the portrait has changed his life.
A famous portrait of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill appears to have been at the center of a heist.
The portrait, on display at the Fairmont Château Laurier in Ottawa, Canada, was captured by Armenian-Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh in 1941 and installed in 1998, the hotel posted on Facebook Monday.
The hotel said the photo had been replaced with a copy of the original.
Geneviève Dumas, the hotel’s general manager, said they discovered the switch when a maintenance worker taking care of the hotel’s artwork and photography noticed the photo wasn’t properly aligned on the wall. The hotel staff removed the photo from the wall and that’s when they noticed something Mistake.
The portrait is supposed to be locked to the wall by four anchors, but it is not.
“It’s a very sophisticated device,” Dumas told USA TODAY. “It’s not anchored. … It’s literally hanging on a rope like anyone would have at home.”
She also said the replacement photo is smaller than the original because it doesn’t align with the wall anchors and the frame is different from the other photos in the gallery.
But perhaps one of the most attractive ways to give gifts is a signature.
When the hotel contacted the director of Karsh’s estate, he immediately knew it was not the original portrait. The hotel also sent him a photograph of Karsh’s signature, and the property said it had been tampered with, Dumas confirmed.
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The hotel has asked those with information to share it with Ottawa police.
Dumas said there was a lot of security at the hotel, including cameras, so management sent evidence to the police.
She spends a lot of time showing the portrait to guests, and it’s normal for people to take pictures with it. Therefore, the hotel asked those with photos of it to send them. Investigators can compare portraits in guest photos, distinguish real from fake, and can figure out when to switch.
Hotel management believes the portrait was engraved between Christmas Day and January 6, 2022, Dumas said Wednesday.
‘I knew after I took it that it was an important photo’
In the famous photo, the former prime minister stares into the camera, left hand on hip and right hand resting on a chair.
Karsh, the 20th-century photographer who took the photo, said that day changed his life, and website offers an intimate look at the moments leading up to his portraiture.
“I knew it was an important photograph after taking it, but I could hardly dream that it would become one of the most widely reproduced photographs in the history of photography,” he said in an excerpt above. its website.
According to the photographer, Churchill visited Washington and then Ottawa; Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King invited Karsh to join, so he waited in the speaker’s booth, where his lights and camera had been installed the night before.
King entered the room, hands clasped together with Churchill’s, and when Karsh turned on the headlights, Churchill asked, “What is this?”
Karsh timidly asked if he could take a portrait of himself to celebrate the “historic occasion”, and Churchill asked why he wasn’t told about the photo in advance.
After the laughter of onlookers, Churchill lit a fire and smoked a fresh cigar, then agreed to be photographed. But the cigar, conspicuously absent, seems to be the reason for Churchill’s bewildered expression in the photo, according to Karsh’s recollection.
The photographer held out an ashtray so Churchill could light his cigar, but he continued to smoke. Karsh waited a little longer, and then “pulled the cigar out of his mouth.”
“By the time I got back to my camera, he looked very belligerent and could have eaten me,” he said. “At that moment I took the picture.”
In another photo taken that day, Churchill flashes a reluctant smile in front of the camera. Someone else caught him share a laugh with King, Prime Minister of Canada.
Dumas said the Karsh family lived at the hotel for 18 years, and from 1972 to 1992 he ran a studio there.
The photographer gave the hotel the original portrait, and there were about 15 other people in the hotel. They were dropped until management could figure out what happened, Dumas said.
If someone knows what happened, she hopes they will move on.
“Maybe someone went somewhere to dinner and bragged about their beautiful picture of Winston Churchill,” she said. “Moving on. … It would be sad to leave that iconic piece of history and symbolism somewhere (not) where it belongs, here at the Fairmont Château Laurier.”
Saleen Martin is a reporter for USA TODAY team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – 757 – and love all things horror, witchcraft, Christmas and food. Follow her on Twitter at @Saleen_Martin or email her at [email protected].