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This is a positive article in a publication that the president has frequently admired – except for one issue. The front-page image, he stated, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time magazine's praise to Trump's role in mediating a ceasefire in Gaza, featured on its November 10 cover, was presented alongside a image of the president captured from underneath and with the sun positioned behind him.

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

"Time wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time", he shared on his social media platform.

“My hair was erased, and then there was something floating my head that looked like a suspended diadem, but very tiny. Truly strange! I have never liked being shot from underneath, but this is a awful image, and it deserves to be called out. What is their goal, and why?”

The president has expressed clear his wish to feature on Time magazine's front page and achieved this multiple times in the past year. This fixation has extended to the president's resorts – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove fabricated front pages on display at a few of his establishments.

The latest edition’s photo was shot by Graeme Sloane for Bloomberg at the White House on October 5.

Its angle highlighted negatively the president's jawline and throat – an opportunity that California governor Newsom did not miss, with his communications team tweeting a version with the criticized section pixelated.

{The hostages from Israel in Gaza have been liberated under the opening part of the president's diplomatic initiative, together with a Palestinian prisoner release. The arrangement may become a signature achievement of the president's renewed tenure, and it may represent a key shift for the Middle East.

Meanwhile, a defence of Trump's image has come from a surprising origin: the director of information at Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs intervened to denounce the "revealing" photo selection.

It's remarkable: a photo reveals far more about those who picked it than about the person in it. Only sick people, people filled with spite and resentment –maybe even degenerates – could have picked this picture", she shared on Telegram.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that that magazine used on the cover, even with his age-related challenges, the case is self-damaging for Time", she said.

The answer to his queries – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – could be related to innovatively depicting a sense of power says an imaging expert, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The photograph technically is well-executed," she explains. "They selected this photo because they wanted the president to look commanding. Staring up at someone evokes a feeling of their majesty and the president's visage actually looks thoughtful and almost a bit ethereal. It's rare you see photos of Trump in such a calm instance – the picture feels tender."

His hair seems to vanish because the sunlight behind him has overexposed that part of the image, creating a halo effect, she adds. And, while the article's title marries well with Trump’s expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the person photographed."

"No one likes being photographed from below, and even if all of the conceptual elements of the image are very strong, the visual appeal are not complimentary."

The Guardian contacted Time magazine for comment.