BEIJING — China has pledged to do more to track down lost cultural relics after an 18th century imperial jade seal was auctioned in London for nearly US$6 million, state media said November 6.

The jade seal — dating back to the Qing Dynasty, during the reign of emperor Qian Long (1736-1795) — was sold at Sotheby’s on November 4 for 3.6 million pounds, or six times the upper estimate, the auction house said.

Following the sale, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage vowed to spend more resources on collecting China’s lost cultural relics, the China Daily newspaper said, as angry citizens flooded online chatrooms with comments.

“Bandits have seized our treasures and are now selling them off at auction for ridiculous profits. How can we tolerate such behaviour?” wrote one user of the Sohu Internet portal.

“The Chinese government must get fully involved in this matter.”

A report on state television however cautioned that it was still uncertain how the jade seal ended up overseas and that there was no proof that the relic had been looted or stolen.

Sotheby’s sold more than 100 Chinese cultural relics at the auction for a total of nearly 8.3 million pounds, according to a summary of the sale on the auction house’s website.

“Sotheby’s is not aware of any issue of legal title or provenance concerning the imperial jade seal,” the China Daily quoted Simon Warren, a London-based Sotheby’s official, as saying.

The seal came from a private European collection and was purchased by an anonymous buyer following a bidding war with seven other collectors, Sotheby’s said. — AFP