New York auctions have given us some exciting news. In particular, two very important new records: Francis Bacon has realized the highest price ever paid for a work of contemporary art and Lucian Freud has become the most paid living artist in the world. However, after the adrenalin stirred up by the important results, the time for questioning arrives. Who might be the mysterious buyer of the fantastic paintings sold in New York? What will become of them? Public exhibition or private viewing?
Some of these questions may have found an answer. Indeed, within the circle there are rumours about a few names, and it seems that the buyer of the two masterpieces of contemporary art sold in the last days has been identified.
The auction houses, as usual, are not pronouncing on the mysterious buyer’s identity but some sources have revealed that both works may have ended in the hands of Roman Abramovich.
The billionaire of Russian origins, whose assets are estimated at about 15 billion euros (18.7 million dollars), would have acquired both record works, apparently to place them in his London residence.
Bacon’s “Triptych” (sold by Sotheby’s for 86,281,000 dollars) was executed in 1976; the following year, the work was sold by the London Marlborough Gallery to the Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris. Here the work was acquired by the Moueix, a French family that works in the wine sector, owners of the Château Pétrus label, one of the most expensive Bordeaux in the world, and was their property until a few days ago. The work has been exposed in all the greatest exhibitions on Bacon and reviewed in many essays about the artist.
On the other hand, Freud’s painting, “Benefits supervisor sleeping”, executed in 1995 (sold by Christie’s for 33,641,000 dollars), had been bought by a private collector at Acquavella Galleries New York, and that is all we know about what happened to the painting. At the time of last week’s sale, a share of the masterpiece was Christie’s property, although the entity of the percentage held by the auction house was not specified.
The Russian magnate who would now be the owner of the two masterpieces has been indicated by the magazine Forbes as the eleventh richest man in the world. The businessman owes his fortune to his ability to make excellent business deals when the ex Soviet Union shyly started opening up to the private market. Roman Abramovich started up small activities at the end of the eighties; in the middle nineties he started specializing in the oil industry and since then his activities have recorded an increasing rise. 
As most of his compatriots who have had the same fortune, Roman Abramovich’s interests soon turned to art, inalienable status symbol for the “new rich men”. However, until now the Russian oil trader had never purchased works of such great importance.
Could it be that Abramovich’s interest in art is influenced by his partner Dasha Zhukova? Zhukova, financed by her wealthy partner, is going to open in the next months a contemporary art gallery, which is anticipated to be one of the most important galleries in Moscow. The CCC Moscow (Centre for Contemporary Culture Moscow) is going to open in September with a great retrospective dedicated to Ilya Kabakov.
Aside from gossips, even these last sales are evidence of a tendency that is well known by observers. There seems to be a clear shift of market balances, with the big buyers being less often American and belonging more frequently to the growing markets, precisely the Russian or the Oriental markets. A few weeks ago, it was disclosed that royal family of Qatar has become the owner of the Rothko worth 72.8 million dollars and has recently bought important works by Francis Bacon and Damien Hirst.
Similarly to balances in the world of economy, even in art the balance of power is moving further away from the West as traditionally intended. 

(translated by Giorgina Arcuri)