June 4 (Bloomberg) -- An $8 million Takashi Murakami sculpture was among early sales yesterday as Switzerland's Art Basel opened to invited guests, including Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and his partner Daria Zhukova.

Howard Rachofsky, from Dallas, and Donald and Mera Rubell, from Miami, were also in the crowd of 8,000 collectors who hurried into Hall 2 of the Basel Messe for the opening of the world's largest fair of modern and contemporary art, said exhibitors.

Sellers at the 39th fair are hoping the rich remain as eager to spend money as they were at contemporary-art auctions last month in New York at Sotheby's, Christie's International and Phillips de Pury. Those sales raised a record total of $971.5 million with fees as buyers from emerging markets shrugged off the credit crisis.

``Business is perfectly lovely,'' said Timothy Blum, co- owner of Los Angeles art dealer Blum & Poe. The gallery sold Murakami's 18 1/2 foot-high aluminum and steel sculpture, ``Oval Buddha,'' to a western European collector who Blum wouldn't name.

Alexandra Gaty, a director of Blum & Poe, said the sculpture, dating from 2007, was one of an edition of three. It was among more than 70 large-scale works included in the fair's Art Unlimited section in Hall 1 of the Messe, which previewed on June 2. Another version can be seen in the former IBM building on 57th Street, New York, which now houses the auction house Bonhams.

Blum & Poe also sold a smaller version of the Murakami sculpture, from an edition of 10 in sterling silver, to a U.S. collector for $2 million, said Blum.

`Less Frenetic'

``It's a less frenetic pace than last year,'' Blum said. ``Because of the earlier timing of the fair, we're missing a large group of Americans. We normally see a lot more museum groups.''

This year, the event moved forward 10 days to precede the arrival of the Euro 2008 soccer tournament in Switzerland. U.S. collectors had been reluctant to leave children who had yet to start school vacations, Blum said.

Abramovich was a visitor to the booth of the New York dealer, Acquavella Galleries, said Alex Acquavella, a grandson of the gallery's founder. Acquavella, one of more than 300 dealers exhibiting in Hall 2, is offering Lucian Freud's mid-1990s canvas, ``Girl in Attic Doorway,'' for $12 million.

Freud Reserved

``The Freud is reserved for a few hours,'' said Alex Acquavella. ``It's most unusual for us to do that on the first morning of a fair.'' He would not say who had reserved the work.

Abramovich also visited Gagosian's nearby stand, said Victoria Gelfand, a director at Gagosian. She would not say if he had bought any pieces.

``Sales are very similar to last year, but the crowd is more international,'' she said. Gagosian sold 10 works, including an 11-feet-wide canvas also by Murakami, for prices ranging from $100,000 to $3 million in the first two hours, Gelfand said.

The ground floor of Art Basel features classic modern as well as contemporary works. London dealer Marlborough Fine Art is offering the 1970 Francis Bacon triptych, ``Three Studies of the Human Body,'' priced at $80 million, said the gallery's Tamara Dial.

``The price doesn't seem to shock people,'' said Dial, ``but it's a bit early for people to express serious interest yet.''

Among the contemporary dealers exhibiting on the upper floor is London-based White Cube.

`Hell' Sells

``Demand seems pretty buoyant,'' said Tim Marlow, the gallery's director of exhibitions. Last week a version of the installation ``Hell'' sold for 7.5 million pounds ($14.7 million) at the gallery's Chapman Brothers show in London, he said.

At Basel, White Cube sold the Andreas Gursky C-print, ``Dubai World II,'' for 400,000 euros ($618,000) within the first hour of business.

The Rubells were the buyers of a wooden sculpture by the conceptual artists Elmgreen & Dragset for a ``low six-figure price'' at the booth of London dealer Victoria Miro, said gallery director Glenn Scott Wright. The sculpture is called ``Crash... Boom... Bang...'' and is one of an edition of three.

``We could have sold this piece three times over,'' said Scott Wright.

`` know people are nervous, but for me it's been sell, sell, sell,'' said Gerd Harry Lybke, director of Berlin-based Galerie Eigen + Art, which specializes in the Leipzig School of German painters.

An abstract picture by Carsten Nicolai sold for 18,000 euros and a figurative canvas by David Schnell fetched 95,000 euros. ``There aren't so many Americans around this year, though,'' said Lybke.

Abramovich paid record prices of $86.3 million for a Bacon painting and $33.6 million for a work by Freud at the May sales, according to the Art Newspaper.

(Scott Reyburn writes about the art market for Bloomberg News. Any opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Reyburn in London at sreyburn@hotmail.com.

Last Updated: June 3, 2008 20:55 EDT