JPA, Mysql Blob returns data too long

I've got some byte[] fields in my entities, e.g.:

@Entity
public class ServicePicture implements Serializable {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 2877629751219730559L;
    // seam-gen attributes (you should probably edit these)
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long id;
    private String description;

    @Lob
    @Basic(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
    private byte[] picture;

On my database schema the field is set to BLOB so this should be fine. Anyway: Everytime when I try to insert a picture or pdf - nothing bigger than 1mb, I only recieve this

16:52:27,327 WARN  [JDBCExceptionReporter] SQL Error: 0, SQLState: 22001
16:52:27,327 ERROR [JDBCExceptionReporter] Data truncation: Data too long for column 'picture' at row 1
16:52:27,328 ERROR [STDERR] javax.persistence.PersistenceException: org.hibernate.exception.DataException: could not insert: [de.ac.dmg.productfinder.entity.ServicePicture]
16:52:27,328 ERROR [STDERR]     at org.hibernate.ejb.AbstractEntityManagerImpl.throwPersistenceException(AbstractEntityManagerImpl.java:629)
16:52:27,328 ERROR [STDERR]     at org.hibernate.ejb.AbstractEntityManagerImpl.persist(AbstractEntityManagerImpl.java:218)
16:52:27,328 ERROR [STDERR]     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
16:52:27,328 ERROR [STDERR]     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
16:52:27,328 ERROR [STDERR]     at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
16:52:27,328 ERROR [STDERR]     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
16:52:27,328 ERROR [STDERR]     at org.jboss.seam.persistence.EntityManagerInvocationHandler.invoke(EntityManagerInvocationHandler.java:46)
16:52:27,328 ERROR [STDERR]     at $Proxy142.persist(Unknown Source)

I've checked my MySQL cnf and the max_allowedparam is set to 16M - am I missing something?