Excitement was at fever pitch at Basel this week when Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea football club, made a long visit to the Art Basel fair. Fresh from dropping a cool $120m at the New York auctions last month, when he bought a Bacon and a Freud, the London-based Russian billionaire trawled the fair with his new partner, Dasha Zhukova, and art adviser Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst. Zhukova is converting a disused Moscow bus garage into a contemporary art gallery and has hired Dent-Brocklehurst, who previously worked for the Gagosian gallery, to direct it. The presence of Abramovich cheered dealers at Art Basel, as until now Russians, and new art buyers in general, have been thought to buy mainly at auction. They hope wealthy collectors from the former Soviet Union might follow his lead. Art Basel continues until Sunday.

A French auctioneer has been ignominiously stripped of his coveted Légion d’Honneur, the highest French decoration. Jean-Claude Binoche has been found guilty of serious breach of trust, after buying two works of art from one of his own auctions through an anonymous Swiss bank account. He hung them in his elegant Place des Vosges apartment but then had the bad idea of allowing a gossip magazine to photograph it. The previous owner spotted the works on his walls and took him to court. Binoche has been ordered to return them to their original owner. He gets his Légion d’Honneur back, however, in five years’ time.