Beijing's Huachen Auction House said on its website that after conferring with its client, it has decided not to include the portrait in its auction slated for June 3.

"We are currently engaged in negotiations with domestic museums over its keeping," it said.

Last week, the auction house said the Mao portrait was expected to attract bids of up to 1.2 million yuan (150,000 dollars).

But the auction plan met with widespread opposition in China, with numerous postings on Internet chat rooms calling for the safe-keeping of the portrait in a domestic museum.

The auction house's spokesman Mei Ligang declined to comment further Friday.

Painted by Zhang Zhenshi in 1950, the portrait was the first of Mao to hang on Tiananmen Square after he founded the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The portrait, which stands just under one meter (3.3 feet) tall, has since served as the model of Mao's likeness for all the portraits that have hung on the Tiananmen Square Rostrum Building.

It is currently owned by an overseas American-Chinese collector, the auction house said last week.

The six-meter-tall portrait of Mao currently on display in Tiananmen Square is one of the most well-known symbols of China.

It was from the rostrum that Mao declared the People's Republic established.

He also addressed millions of fanatic "Red Guards," or young Chinese revolutionaries, from there during the Cultural Revolution that officially started on May 16, 1966.

Mao instigated the revolution to create a classless society but also to eliminate his political rivals. It resulted in political and economic chaos for the nation and ended only after Mao's death in 1976.

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