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It is a positive article in a publication that Trump has consistently praised – with one exception. The front-page image, the president decreed, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's paean to Trump's role in facilitating a truce for Gaza, leading its 10 November issue, was accompanied by a photo of the president captured from underneath while the sun shining from the back.

The outcome, the president asserts, is ""terrible".

"Time wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time", Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that appeared as a suspended coronet, but an very tiny one. Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a terrible picture, and should be criticized. What are they doing, and why?”

The president has expressed no secret of his desire to appear on Time magazine's front page and did so multiple times in the past year. This fixation has reached his golf courses – previously, the magazine asked him to remove fake issues exhibited in some of his properties.

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

Its angle was unflattering to his chin and neck area – a chance that California governor Gavin Newsom did not miss, with his communications team posting a modified photo with the problematic part obscured.

{The Israeli captives detained in Gaza have been freed under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, alongside a Palestinian prisoner release. The deal may become a defining accomplishment of his next term, and it may represent a key shift for the Middle East.

Meanwhile, a defence of his portrayal has emerged from a surprising origin: the spokesperson at Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs intervened to criticise the "damaging" photo selection.

It's amazing: a photograph says more about those who chose it than about the person in it. Only disturbed individuals, people driven by hatred and animosity –perhaps even perverts – could have chosen such a photo", she wrote on the messaging platform.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that that magazine used on the cover, even with his age-related challenges, the story is simply self-incriminating for Time", she said.

The answer to Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – may be something to do with creatively capturing a sense of power says a picture editor, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

The image itself is professionally taken," she notes. "They chose this shot because they wanted the president to look heroic. Gazing upward gives a sense of their majesty and the president's visage actually looks thoughtful and almost somewhat divine. It’s not often you see pictures of him in such a peaceful state – the picture feels tender."

Trump’s hair seems to vanish because the rear illumination has overexposed that part of the image, creating a halo effect, she says. And, while the story’s headline complements Trump’s expression in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the person photographed."

"No one likes being captured from low angles, and while all of the artistic aspects of the image are very strong, the visual appeal are unflattering."

The publication contacted Time magazine for feedback.