A few months after Jennifer Aniston's bust-up with Brad Pitt, she was asked what she liked about being on her own. Her response: "I can have a comfortable couch." Seems in happier days they used "to joke that every piece of furniture was either a museum piece or just uncomfortable," a design preference her ex has carried over into his knee-deep-in-diapers life with Angelina Jolie.

On Tuesday, the twins-awaiting aesthete spent a couple of hours browsing solo at the elite Design Miami/Basel international art show in Switzerland, where he reportedly shelled out more for a few pieces of furniture than his average fan drops on a house.

According to Bloomberg News, Pitt's most extravagant purchase was a $293,000 Carrara marble table by Dutch designer Jeroen Verhoeven, which we're guessing tots Maddox, 6, Pax, 4, Zahara, 3, and Shiloh, 2, won't be using for their finger-painting projects.

The actor-cum-architecture buff, who has oodles of space to fill in the family's newly rented $70 million chateau in the south of France, also picked up a pair of chairs by Max Lamb for $25,000 a pop, along with a foam and fiberglass lamp featuring three silhouettes -- seemingly an adult and two children -- by Atelier van Lieshout for an undisclosed sum, says E! News.

And when the twins start crawling, they'll do so on a rug created by a Colombian artist from aluminum thread (ooh, comfy), for which Brad will pay $175 per square foot.

Bloomberg reports he also eyed a gold lacquer-covered couch by Zaha Hadid, which retails for $300,000 and would be perfect for those lazy afternoons kicking back watching football, playing video games or entertaining an Egyptian pharaoh.

"Brad asked questions that only an art expert would ask," the fair's organizer enthuses to Swiss newspaper Blick (via People). "You can feel that he is an absolute maniac."

No word on whether any of Pitt's purchases were intended for Jolie's 33rd birthday, which she celebrated on Wednesday. A few unwelcome gifts she did receive for the occasion: false birth reports purportedly provided by someone impersonating her assistant and yet another story about the supposedly fragile state of her health, courtesy of Star.

Brangelina and brood (and The Edge) on a beach in France in early May and on the cover of this week's Star.

"Angie Collapses! Last Minute Panic!" screams the tab's latest cover. "Blood sugar crisis. False labor -- TWICE! Brad pleads, 'Hold on!'"

Illustrating this exclamation mark-festooned tale of her swooning spell during a trip to the bathroom at their French chateau is a dramatic image of a Pax-toting Pitt helping Jolie off the ground.

"She felt lightheaded, and her knees buckled," a source alleges to Star. "Brad grabbed her and told her to 'hold on, hold on' until her doctor got to her."

But as you're browsing the glossies in the supermarket checkout line this weekend, keep in mind the photo was apparently snapped a month ago during a beach outing in France, where they were hanging with Zahara and pal The Edge from U2, who also extended a hand to the seated Angelina.

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