Four artworks by Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Diane Arbus surrendered to the US Department of Justice in connection with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal are now being auctioned online by the US Marshals Service.Gaston and Sheehan, an auction house in Pflugerville, Texas, has been contracted by the US government to sell Jean Michel Basquiat’s Self Portrait (1982) and collage Red Man One (1982), Pablo Picasso’s Tête de taureau et broc (1939), and Diane Arbus’s Child with a Toy Hand Grenade. The online only auction began on July 16 and closes on September 4. Notably, there is no buyer’s premium on any of the artworks.Art advisors and experts told ARTnews the works are high caliber and have “crazy” starting bids relative to their actual value based on previous auction records and sales information. However, the simple auction website and association with an international fugitive may deter potential bidders in an already sluggish art market. “It’s not the sexiest place to buy, but it could present the right opportunity for a savvy buyer,” Art advisor Dane Jensen told ARTnews, noting the lack of condition report and information about where the works have been stored, likely requiring an in-person inspection by any serious potential bidders.“Most of my clients would not be interested in sitting on this website and bidding on it just because the website is so terrible,” art advisor Arushi Kapoor told ARTnews. “If someone sent me this website that wasn’t you, I would probably be like, ‘someone’s trying to scam me’.”Documents filed by the Justice Department in July 2020 state Basquiat’s Self Portrait was surrendered to the US government by Christopher Joey McFarland, who co-founded Red Granite Pictures with Riza Shahriz Bin Abdul Aziz, the stepson of the former Malaysian prime minister. McFarland and Aziz also produced the 2013 movie The Wolf of Wall Street.The other three artworks were purchased by Malaysian businessman and fugitive Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, between 2012 and 2014 and gifted to actor and art collector Leonardo DiCaprio, who also starred and produced The Wolf of Wall Street. Documents filed by the Justice Department state DiCaprio—who appeared on ARTnews‘ Top 200 Collectors List in 2015 and 2016—surrendered all three artworks to the US government after the Picasso and Basquiat were located in Switzerland in 2017.Low is currently wanted in several countries, including by Interpol, for his key role in the 1MDB scandal. The US Justice Department believes more than $4.5 billion was stolen from Malaysia’s sovereign investment development fund between 2009 and 2015 “by high-level officials of 1MDB and their associates, and Low Taek Jho (aka Jho Low), through a criminal scheme involving international money laundering and embezzlement.” ARTnews previously reported that Basquiat’s Red Man One (1982) sold for $3.5 million with fees at Sotheby’s Contemporary evening sale in New York in May 2009. Documents filed by the Justice Department state the Basquiat collage was purchased for $9.4 million from the Helly Nahmad Gallery in New York “in or around November 2012”, using diverted proceeds for a bond sale for 1MDB. The starting bid for Red Man One on the US Marshalls Art Auction website was $2.975 million.Documents filed by the Justice Department in June 2016 state the Picasso painting Tête de taureau et broc (1939), also known as Nature morte au crâne, was acquired on January 2, 2014 using $3.28 million in funds from a diverted bond sale in 2013. The painting was gifted to DiCaprio the same month with a handwritten note that said “Happy belated Birthday! This gift is for you.” and signed “TKL”, Low’s initials.The starting bid for both Basquiat’s Self Portrait and Picasso’s Tête de taureau et broc on the US Marshalls Art Auction was $850,000.Documents filed by the US Justice Department also stated the gelatin silver print Child with a Toy Hand Grenade (1962) by Arbus was purchased from the art and movie memorabilia company Cinema Archives for $750,000. The starting bid for Child with a Toy Hand Grenade on the US Marshalls Art Auction was $4,400.While proceeds from federal seizures typically go to the Treasury Department, funds from the sale of assets connected to the 1MDB case will benefit people who were harmed by the corruption in Malaysia, a Justice Department spokesperson told NPR in 2019.Gaston and Sheehan previously sold two other artworks in connection with the 1MDB scandal in February 2021: Heinz Schulz-Neudamm’s rare “Metropolis” 1927 film poster and Andy Warhol’s Round Jackie (1964). The gold Warhol painting sold for $1.04 million, slightly below the $1.055 million Low paid for it at a Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale in New York in November 2013, before gifting it to Top 200 collector Swizz Beatz.Another artwork previously connected to Low, Mark Rothko‘s Untitled (Yellow and Blue), sold for a much larger drop last November at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong. The nearly 8-foot-tall 1954 painting sold for $252.5 million HKD ($32.5 million) on a high estimate of $275 million HKD ($35 million), 30 percent less than when it it sold for $46.5 million at a Sotheby’s New York evening sale in May 2015.While some art advisors said the association with Low might also result in discounts for Self Portrait (1982), Red Man One (1982), Tête de taureau et broc (1939), and Child with a Toy Hand Grenade, at least one industry expert said it was too early to predict bidding activity for the blue-chip artists.“A sale price below the estimate or below a prior sale price could be caused by so many factors – it is difficult to tell if it is due to a slump or downturn in the art market, a problem that everyone’s writing about, or if it’s related to an issue with the particulars of this sale and auction process,” Jane Levine, partner and co-founder of The ArtRisk Group, former federal prosecutor as well as former Chief Global Compliance Counsel and Head of Government Affairs at Sotheby’s, told ARTnews. “It’s always hard to know what will happen at a public auction, and it could defy expectations and go higher. That’s part of the fun of auctions and makes them so, but interesting.”News of the US Marshals auction was first reported by Lynda Albertson, the CEO of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art (ARCA). The previous art auction at Gaston and Sheehan in 2021 was first reported by Greg Allen.