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This is a positive feature in a periodical that Trump has frequently admired – except for one issue. The magazine's cover photo, the president decreed, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's praise to Trump's role in mediating a ceasefire in Gaza, featured on its November 10 cover, was accompanied by a image of Trump shot from a low angle and with the sun behind his head.

The result, Trump claims, is "super bad".

"Time wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the image may be the Worst of All Time", the president posted on his social media platform.

“They eliminated my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that resembled a suspended coronet, but an extremely small one. Truly strange! I always disliked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and should be criticized. What are they doing, and why?”

The president has expressed obvious his ambition to be pictured on Time magazine's front page and did so on four occasions in the previous year. The preoccupation has extended to Trump’s golf clubs – in 2017, the publication requested to remove fake issues on display at some of his properties.

The most recent cover image was shot by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the presidential residence on 5 October.

Its angle did no favours for his chin and neck area – an opening that California governor Newsom seized, with his press office sharing an altered image with the offending area blurred.

{The Israeli captives held in Gaza have been freed under the first phase of Trump's ceasefire agreement, together with a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The deal may become a defining accomplishment of Trump's second term, and it may represent a key shift for that part of the world.

At the same time, a defense of Trump's image has come from a surprising origin: the communications chief at Moscow's diplomatic office intervened to criticise the "damaging" picture decision.

It's amazing: a image says more about those who picked it than about the subject. Only disturbed individuals, people filled with spite and animosity –possibly even deviants – could have selected such an image", she posted on the messaging platform.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that the periodical displayed on the cover, notwithstanding his health issues, the case is self-damaging for the publication", she noted.

The response to his queries – what did the editors intend, and why? – might involve creatively capturing a sense of power says Carly Earl, a media professional.

The image itself technically is good," she explains. "They selected this photo because they wanted the president to look impressive. Staring up at someone creates an impression of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks contemplative and almost somewhat divine. It's rare you see images of the president in such a calm instance – the image has a softness to it."

The president's hair seems to vanish because the light from behind has bleached that section of the image, producing a glowing aura, she adds. Although the article's title complements the president's look in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the subject matter."

Few people appreciate being captured from low angles, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are quite powerful, the appearance are not flattering."

The news outlet reached out to Time magazine for a statement.