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It is a glowing article in a publication that the president has long exalted – except for one issue. The front-page image, he stated, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time magazine's paean to Donald Trump's part in mediating a truce for Gaza, featured on its November 10 cover, was accompanied by a photograph of Trump captured from underneath and with the sun positioned behind him.

The result, Trump claims, is ""extremely poor".

"The publication wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the photo may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on his preferred network.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that looked like a suspended coronet, but an remarkably little one. Truly strange! I consistently avoided taking pictures from low perspectives, but this is a extremely poor picture, and deserves to be called out. What is their intention, and why?”

Trump has made no secret of his desire to feature on Time magazine's front page and accomplished it four times last year. The obsession has reached Trump’s golf clubs – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove mocked up covers exhibited in some of his properties.

The latest edition’s photo was taken by a photographer for Bloomberg at the White House on the fifth of October.

The shot's viewpoint did no favours for Trump’s chin and neck – an opportunity that the governor of California Newsom did not miss, with his communications team posting a modified photo with the offending area blurred.

{The Israeli captives detained in Gaza have been freed under the first phase of the president's diplomatic initiative, together with a Palestinian prisoner release. The arrangement could be a defining accomplishment of Trump's second term, and it could mark a strategic turning point for the Middle East.

Meanwhile, a support for his portrayal has come from a surprising origin: the spokesperson at Moscow's diplomatic office intervened to criticise the "revealing" picture decision.

"It’s astonishing: a photo exposes those who picked it than about the individual pictured. Only disturbed individuals, people obsessed with malice and hatred –maybe even degenerates – could have selected such an image", the official shared on Telegram.

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

The response to Trump’s questions – what did the editors intend, and why? – may be something to do with artistically representing a feeling of authority says a picture editor, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

"The actual photo itself is professionally taken," she says. "They selected this photo because they wanted trump to look heroic. Looking up at a person evokes a feeling of their majesty and the president's visage actually looks reflective and almost somewhat divine. It's rare you see pictures of him in such a calm instance – the picture feels tender."

The president's hair seems to vanish because the rear illumination has bleached that section of the image, producing a glowing aura, she says. Even though the feature's heading marries well with the president's look in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the person photographed."

"No one likes being photographed from below, and even if all of the thematic components of the image are highly effective, the aesthetics are unflattering."

The Guardian contacted the magazine for a statement.