Roman soothes Chelsea blues with art shopping spree

Roman Abramovich has been visiting the Basel Art Fair with his beautiful girlfriend Daria 'Dasha' Zhukova and dealers expecting a shopping spree were not disappointed. According to the Art Newspaper, the Russian oligarch paid $14m for a bronze sculpture, Femme de Venise I, by Alberto Giacometti.

The dealer who sold it to him, Jan Krugier, refused to confirm Abramovich was the buyer, as you would expect. But he and Daria had visited his gallery's stand on Wednesday, and then returned the next day to seal the sale. Says The First Post's source. "He definitely brought it. It's not a huge amount of money by his standards, but it's an interesting buy. As far as I know he has never been to an art fair before, preferring to buy at auction."

Last month Abramovich paid $120m for works by Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud in the New York Spring sales. It is not clear whether the art is destined for his new London home or for Daria's Centre for Contemporary Culture which, as reported on The First Post, is to open in Moscow this summer.

Either way, it looks like he's been bitten by the art bug. In times past, he would have been spending this sort of money on strikers for his once beloved Chelsea Football Club, who are still without a manager since Abramovich sacked his old friend Avram Grant following the humiliation of losing the European Championship to Manchester United in Moscow last month.