Plot

Lovejoy utilizes all his wiles for a sting which will help the disinherited brother of a snobbish aristocrat recover some of his rightful fortune.

Jane asks Lovejoy to peruse the catalog of the aristocratic Carey-Holden family, whose grandfather acquired many objets d'art on a world tour two generations earlier. The only thing Lovejoy finds of value is a Guarini Florentine bronze dating from the Renaissance that looks very much like Botticelli's Venus. Although the greedy but dull Lady Felicity and her snobbish husband believe it must have been sold many years before, Lovejoy spots the bottom part of the two million pound bronze in the family garden, but decides not to inform his obnoxious hosts. Later when Jane asks him to help Carey-Holden's younger brother, a struggling but skilled artist who has been shut out of the family fortune by his avaricious older brother, Lovejoy concocts a sting that will employ Nicholas' skill as a copyist and net him over 200,000 pounds of his brother's money.—duke1029@aol.com

Lovejoy (Ian McShane) helps the poor brother (Nicholas Farrell) get some of his proper inheritance from his rich mean brother, Sir Hugo Carey-Holden (Patrick Malahide). Sir Hugo has Lovejoy look through the family catalogue of antiques to discover valuables. Lovejoy notices a drawing of the Italian Venus on a half shell. This is a very valuable antique which Sir Hugo thinks has been sold. Lovejoy finds the half shell in the garden. He then has the poor brother, Douglas Holden, who is a sculptor, create a copy of the original Italian Venus. Lovejoy sell the statue to Sir Hugo, who later realizes that he has been duped, as the original statue has been made into a lamp which is in his study.