STEVEN SPIELBERG - STOLEN ART FOUND IN SPIELBERG COLLECTION

An oil on canvas picture by American artist Norman Rockwell stolen more than 30 years ago has been found in the personal collection of Hollywood director Steven Spielberg.

The three-time Oscar winner's staff contacted the authorities last week after the FBI posted details of the Russian Schoolroom on the internet.

Now valued at $700,000 (£360,000), the picture was first stolen from a gallery in St Louis, Missouri, in June 1973.

Spielberg then purchased the work, which depicts children in a classroom next to a bust of communist leader Vladimir Lenin, from a legitimate art dealer 16 years later.

The director will hang onto the work of art until its "disposition can be determined", the FBI said in a statement.

Rockwell, most famous for the hundreds of covers he created for the Saturday Evening Post, died in 1978 at the age of 84.