It turned out to be something however. The caller was a particular agent who had information that felt “totally unbelievable and astonishing in each method, form and type,” mentioned Wooden’s daughter, Penelope Kulko: A priceless piece of artwork stolen from the household had resurfaced greater than 50 years after the crime.
Reality be advised, the occasions that led to its restoration appeared stranger than any scammer’s fiction. “The Schoolmistress,” a late 18th century work from the famend British portrait artist John Opie, spent greater than three a long time hanging within the Woodses’ eating room till it was stolen in 1969 by three New Jersey Mafiosi, allegedly beneath the path of a firebrand state senator. For years, the portray launched into a clandestine journey by way of the legal underworld — solely to be discovered after an accounting agency liquidated the property of a lately deceased shopper who bought a convicted mobster’s Florida house.
Although “The Schoolmistress” is now tied to an period when the mafia reigned supreme in New Jersey, because of the headline-making heist, its historical past stretches again one other 200 years to the time of King George III. The oil portray from 1784 captures a slice of day by day life: a girl and boy engrossed in studying as different schoolchildren look on.
It was an early work by Opie, who was nicknamed the “Cornish Marvel” and rose to fame for his potential to supply detail-rich portraits regardless of missing formal coaching. His chiaroscuro approach, which makes use of mild and darkness for depth and has been in comparison with Rembrandt’s and Caravaggio’s, rapidly received the admiration of King George III and different British nobles.
The stolen paintings is one other model of a portray on show in London’s Tate Britain museum. In 1788, it was bought from Opie by the Earl of Stamford, George Harry Gray, who handed it all the way down to a sequence of his descendants. The portray, which was final publicly displayed within the 1857 “Artwork Treasures” exhibition, then wound up at a Christie’s public sale, the place it was bought to a London-based art-dealer.
That’s how Wooden’s dad and mom ran throughout it in 1930, whereas on a visit to London throughout “the peak of the Nice Despair,” the 96-year-old mentioned. The couple, a doctor and a member of the Newark Museum’s board of trustees, purchased the portray for about $7,500 and took it on their transatlantic journey aboard the S.S. Paris, in response to the FBI. Of their New Jersey house, the portray hung throughout from the eating desk for 39 years, filling three generations with reminiscences.
“All of us had Sunday dinner at our grandparents’ home each different week,” Kulko, 64, mentioned. “My seat was going through the portray and I simply bear in mind it so nicely. I noticed it each different Sunday for 10 years and my father noticed it there ever since he was three. It’s a connection to his dad and mom.”
The chain of occasions that might result in the portray’s disappearance started on July 7, 1969. That day, Gerald Festa, Gerald Donnerstag and Austin Castiglione — all tied to the New Jersey mob — tried breaking into the Wooden house in quest of a uncommon coin assortment, in response to an FBI affidavit. A burglar alarm drove them away, and Anthony Imperiale, a Newark Metropolis Council member who would go on to serve within the New Jersey state Senate, responded together with the police.
In accordance with the affidavit, the house caretaker talked about to Imperiale that the Opie portray was “priceless.” Simply 18 days later, the mobster trio got here again to the house — this time working off with the paintings.
In 1975, Festa admitted to stealing the portray, testifying in a trial over a housebreaking ring that Imperiale orchestrated it. He mentioned the three males had stopped on the politician’s clubhouse on the best way to the Woodses’ house.
“Now we all know precisely the place it’s. Let’s go get it,” Festa claimed Donnerstag mentioned after their assembly, the New York Occasions reported in 1975.
Imperiale — infamous for founding of a vigilante White self-defense group throughout the 1967 Newark riots — denied Festa’s claims, telling the Occasions, “What he thinks and what the reality is are two various things.” With the statute of limitations behind him and Festa’s claims by no means sufficiently corroborated, the New Jersey state senator was by no means charged, in response to the FBI affidavit. Festa was positioned within the witness safety program for testifying towards the mob; Donnerstag was convicted of murder; Castiglione pleaded responsible to the housebreaking. The 4 males have all since died.
“The Schoolmistress” remained misplaced to the legal underworld for over 5 a long time — till FBI Particular Agent Gary France acquired a knock on the door of his Utah workplace in December 2021: an accounting agency that was liquidating James R. Gullo’s property mentioned that they had a portray that seemed to be stolen.
“I used to be actually skeptical at first as a result of, as you may think about, in our FBI places of work we get folks that stroll in on a regular basis with some fairly loopy tales,” France mentioned. However as quickly as he laid eyes on the portray and skim a report from an artwork appraiser, France mentioned he might inform the portray had a shady previous.
Trying up at outdated information tales and police information from through the years — a few of which had been deep within the companies’ archives — confirmed his suspicions. Frances discovered the portray had in some way ended up within the arms of Joseph Covello Sr., a reputed lieutenant of the Gambino crime household. In 1989, Gullo, who was not associated to the mob, purchased Covello’s Florida house. The home got here with a slew of furnishings and belongings — together with the long-lost “Schoolmistress.” Oblivious to the portray’s previous, Gullo introduced it from Florida to Utah when he moved there.
“It simply so occurred that the portray’s final proprietor earlier than it was bought by this good religion purchaser was additionally a convicted mobster,” France mentioned.
How the portray ended up within the Florida house within the first place remains to be a thriller — however the FBI agent believes mobsters handed it on like a scorching potato.
“For most of these artworks which are as well-known and regarded priceless, there actually isn’t a legit market that you would promote these on,” France mentioned. “So items of labor like this are simply handed from one legal to the following or bought on the black market.”
When he reached out to the Wooden household together with his discovery, “it took them a while to digest it.” For months on finish, Wooden’s youngsters pored over outdated pictures and paperwork to show their household’s rightful possession. Fortunately, that they had the “outdated and yellowed and form of crunchy papers” documenting the portray’s buy in 1930, Kulko mentioned. A decide within the Fifth Judicial District Court docket for Washington County, Utah, dominated it was theirs.
Earlier this month, the portray was tucked inside a field and shipped to New Jersey from Utah — and France was there to witness the response because the household gathered to rediscover what for therefore lengthy had appeared like a misplaced treasure.
“I’ve had the chance to work all around the United States, and I by no means labored a case like this,” mentioned France, who was born three years after the portray was stolen and plans to retire quickly. “And so it’s a good way to cap the tip of my profession and undoubtedly it’s within the prime 5 of all my instances so far as what I’ll bear in mind once I depart.”
As for the portray, Wooden mentioned it’s now hanging in his retirement house — subsequent to a different Opie portray the household purchased within the Eighties as “placeholder” whereas awaiting the return of “The Schoolmistress.”
