Opening of the Week: Saatchi rolls out the red carpet

The party queue began at the impressive Georgian front of Saatchi's new gallery and snaked on to the King's Road in Chelsea.

Nearly 2,500 invitations had been sent out to mark Charles Saatchi's drum-roll moment, so luminous art 'stars' found themselves being herded in to form a giant human bottleneck on the ground floor.

On the first floor, Ekow Eshun, Institute of Contemporary Arts artistic director, stared admiringly at a sculpture of a giant naked woman and eulogised about its influences ranging from Lucian Freud to Ron Mueck.

One floor above him, a demurely dressed Tracey Emin chatted to the dishevelled-looking Julian Schnabel, the New York artist who looked relaxed while being photographed in characteristic pyjama bottoms.

Comedian Ruby Wax revealed Charles Saatchi's ability to laugh at himself. "Charles has life-like sculptures by Duane Hanson in his house, so when he last came round, I got my maid to stand still in the hallway with a pram. He laughed when he saw her."

Nigella Lawson emerged in a sultry long black dress with Dasha Zhukova, minus Roman Abramovich, in a short black number. The biggest mystery was the whereabouts of Charles Saatchi. Some said they had seen him, some thought they had, and others questioned the existence of a body double.