18th-century painting stolen in 1969 finally back in family’s hands

An 18th-century British painting stolen by New Jersey mobsters in 1969 has been returned more than a half-century later to the family that bought it for $7,500 during the Great Depression, the FBI’s Salt Lake City field office announced Friday.

The 40-by-50-inch John Opie painting, titled “The Schoolmistress,” is the sister painting of a similar work housed in the Tate Britain art gallery in London.

Authorities believe the piece was stolen with the help of a former New Jersey lawmaker, then passed among organized crime members for years before it ended up in the Southern Utah city of St. George. A Utah man had purchased a house in Florida in 1989 from Joseph Covello Sr. — a convicted mobster linked to the Gambino family — and the painting was included in the sale, the FBI said.

When the buyer died in 2020, a Utah accounting firm that was seeking to liquidate his property sought an appraisal for the painting, and it was discovered to likely be the stolen piece, the FBI said.

The painting, which dates to about 1784, was taken into custody by the agency pending resolution of who owned it and returned on Jan. 11 to Dr. Francis Wood, 96, of Newark, N.J., the son of the painting’s original owner, Dr. Earl Wood, who bought it during the 1930s, the FBI said.

“This piece of art, what a history it’s had,” said FBI Special Agent Gary France, who worked on the case.

Opie was one of the most important British historical and portrait painters of his time, said Lucinda Lax, curator of paintings at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Conn.