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This is a positive feature in a periodical that Donald Trump has long exalted – with one exception. The cover picture, the president decreed, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's praise to Donald Trump's part in brokering a Gaza ceasefire, featured on its November 10 cover, was accompanied by a photo of the president taken from below and with the sun behind his head.

The result, the president asserts, is "super bad".

"Time wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the image may be the Worst of All Time", Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“They removed my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that appeared as a hovering tiara, but an very tiny one. Quite bizarre! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and should be criticized. Why did they do this, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown obvious his ambition to be pictured on Time’s cover and accomplished it on four occasions in the previous year. The preoccupation has reached his golf courses – in 2017, the publication requested to remove fake issues on display at several of his venues.

The latest edition’s photo was captured by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the White House on 5 October.

The shot's viewpoint highlighted negatively the president's jawline and throat – an opportunity that the governor of California Gavin Newsom seized, with the governor's office tweeting a version with the problematic part pixelated.

{The living Israeli hostages in Gaza have been freed under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, alongside a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The deal may become a major success of Trump's second term, and it could mark a strategic turning point for the region.

Meanwhile, a defense of the president’s appearance has come from a surprising origin: the communications chief at Moscow's diplomatic office came forward to criticise the "revealing" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a photo reveals far more about those who picked it than about the subject. Just unwell persons, people driven by hatred and resentment –maybe even degenerates – could have selected such an image", Maria Zakharova posted on the messaging platform.

In light of the positive pictures of President Biden that that magazine used on the cover, despite his physical infirmity, the situation is self-revealing for the publication", she noted.

The answer to Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – could be related to innovatively depicting a sense of power according to Carly Earl, a media professional.

The photograph technically is professionally taken," she explains. "They selected this photo because they wanted trump to look impressive. Staring up at someone gives a sense of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks contemplative and almost a bit ethereal. It's uncommon you see pictures of him in such a peaceful state – the photo appears gentle."

The president's hair appears to “disappear” because the rear illumination has bleached that section of the image, producing a glowing aura, she adds. And, while the article's title marries well with Trump’s expression in the image, "you can’t always please the subject matter."

Nobody enjoys being captured from low angles, and while all of the conceptual elements of the image are quite powerful, the aesthetics are unflattering."

The publication contacted the magazine for feedback.