BEIJING, Feb 10 (AFP) - Chinese authorities in Tibet have introduced with great fanfare an official portrait of the Beijing-picked Panchen Lama, in what is seen as an attempt to smooth over gaps created by a ban on pictures of the Dalai Lama.

A January 30 issue of the Tibet Daily seen in Beijing on Monday carried a front-page report of an officially sanctioned religious ceremony marking the new portrait's release.

In a crackdown last year, China removed all portraits of the Dalai Lama Tibet's highest spiritual leader from Tibetan temples and public places, sparking riots and widespread unrest.

The new portrait is "suitable" to be shown at sites of public events and in the people's homes, the Tibet Daily said.

The January 24 ceremony, attended by 200 monks, commemorated the controversial enthronement of Panchen Erdeni as the Panchen Lama, the second-ranking figure in Tibetan Buddhism, it said.

The child's selection in November 1995 pitted Beijing against forces loyal to the Dalai Lama, who has headed a Tibetan government-in-exile in India since 1959.

Beijing-appointed religious leaders rejected an earlier choice by the Dalai Lama, naming their own find instead as the Panchen Lama's 11th incarnation.

The Dalai Lama, regularly condemned in the state press as a separatist tool of "anti-Chinese Western forces," is seen by the Chinese government as one of its top enemies.

The six-year-old Panchen Lama is being promoted as an icon of Tibetan Buddhism more acceptable to Chinese authorities.

The Tibet Daily report said the boy is making progress in his studies and "is honestly loved by most monks and religious believers."

Chinese armies took control of Tibet in 1951, and the Dalai Lama fled to India eight years later after an abortive uprising.