Churchill & The Roaring Lion (DD407)

This set recreates the taking of one of the most famous photographs ever made. On 30 December 1941, just after Churchill delivered a defiant wartime speech to the Canadian Parliament, the photographer Yousuf Karsh had only minutes to capture him in a side room in Ottawa. Churchill, genial and cigar in hand, would not put the cigar down — so Karsh stepped forward, said "Forgive me, sir," and plucked it from his mouth. The scowl that resulted — jowls set, eyes blazing, one hand gripping a chair — became the defining image of British defiance, the look Karsh titled "The Roaring Lion." Churchill, his humour recovered, told him he could "make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed." Few portraits have been reproduced so often. K&C's set is a little tableau: Churchill glaring beside a chair, Karsh calmly working his camera on its tripod, and a three-sided room setting modelled on the actual panelled chamber in Ottawa where the portrait was taken. It makes a self-contained scene, and it pairs with the collection's other Churchill — the defiant 1940 figure with his tommy gun — his favourite general, Monty, and the wartime summit where he sat with the other Allied leaders, Yalta 1945. As a display piece it is unusual and complete: not a battlefield, but the quiet room where an image that helped define a war was made. Model: DD407 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 2 figures with camera and room setting