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It is a glowing feature in a magazine that the president has long exalted – except for one issue. The magazine's cover photo, he stated, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time's paean to Trump's role in mediating a ceasefire in Gaza, leading its 10 November issue, was accompanied by a image of Trump taken from below while the sun shining from the back.

The result, the president asserts, is ""extremely poor".

"Time Magazine wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the image may be the Worst of All Time", the president posted on his preferred network.

“My hair was obscured, and then there was something floating my head that seemed like a hovering crown, but extremely small. Really weird! I have always hated being shot from underneath, but this is a super bad image, and it should be denounced. What are they doing, and why?”

Trump has made clear his wish to feature on Time’s cover and accomplished it multiple times in the past year. This fixation has reached Trump’s golf clubs – previously, the editors demanded to remove fabricated front pages shown in some of his properties.

The most recent cover image was taken by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the White House on the fifth of October.

The perspective did no favours for the president's jawline and throat – an opportunity that the governor of California Newsom took advantage of, with the governor's office sharing an altered image with the criticized section pixelated.

{The hostages from Israel held in Gaza have been released under the initial stage of Trump's ceasefire agreement, together with a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The arrangement could be a defining accomplishment of his next term, and it may represent a pivotal moment for the Middle East.

At the same time, a defense of Trump's image has come from an unexpected source: the communications chief at Moscow's diplomatic office intervened to criticise the "revealing" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a image says more about those who selected it than about the individual pictured. Just unwell persons, people filled with spite and resentment –possibly even deviants – could have picked this picture", she posted on the messaging platform.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that the same publication used on the cover, notwithstanding his health issues, the case is self-damaging for the magazine", she added.

The answer to Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – might involve artistically representing a impression of strength according to a picture editor, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

The image itself technically is good," she says. "They selected this photo because they wanted trump to look commanding. Looking up at a person gives a sense of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks contemplative and almost slightly angelic. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a peaceful state – the image has a softness to it."

The president's hair appears to “disappear” because the light from behind has washed out that area of the image, creating a halo effect, she adds. Although the story’s headline complements his facial expression in the image, "you can’t always please the person photographed."

Few people appreciate being photographed from below, and while all of the artistic aspects of the image are very strong, the aesthetics are not complimentary."

The Guardian reached out to the magazine for comment.