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This is a glowing feature in a periodical that the president has frequently admired – except for one issue. The cover picture, he stated, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time's paean to Donald Trump's part in brokering a truce for Gaza, featured on its November 10 cover, was accompanied by a image of Trump captured from underneath and with the sun shining from the back.

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

"The publication wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the photo may be the most awful ever", he shared on his preferred network.

“My hair was erased, and then there was a shape over my head that seemed like a hovering crown, but extremely small. Truly strange! I have always hated being shot from underneath, but this is a extremely poor image, and it deserves to be called out. Why did they choose this, and why?”

The president has expressed obvious his ambition to feature on Time magazine's front page and achieved this on four occasions in the previous year. The obsession has reached his golf courses – in 2017, the magazine asked him to remove fabricated front pages on display at several of his venues.

The latest edition’s photo was shot by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the presidential residence on 5 October.

The shot's viewpoint highlighted negatively Trump’s chin and neck – a chance that the governor of California Gavin Newsom did not miss, with the governor's office sharing an altered image with the criticized section blurred.

{The living Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been freed under the initial stage of Trump's ceasefire agreement, in exchange for a release of Palestinian detainees. The deal may become a signature achievement of the president's renewed tenure, and it could mark a strategic turning point for that part of the world.

At the same time, a defence of the president’s appearance has emerged from an unexpected source: the communications chief at the Russian foreign ministry came forward to denounce the "damaging" photo selection.

"It’s astonishing: a image reveals far more about those who selected it than about the individual pictured. Just unwell persons, people driven by hatred and resentment –maybe even degenerates – could have chosen such a photo", Maria Zakharova shared on the messaging platform.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that that magazine featured on the front, despite his physical infirmity, the situation is self-revealing for Time", she added.

The answer to the president's inquiries – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – could be related to innovatively depicting a sense of power according to Carly Earl, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The photograph technically is well-executed," she explains. "They selected this photo because they wanted Trump to look commanding. Gazing upward gives a sense of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks contemplative and almost a bit ethereal. It’s not often you see images of the president in such a calm instance – the image has a softness to it."

Trump’s hair seems to vanish because the light from behind has bleached that section of the image, producing a glowing aura, she says. And, while the story’s headline pairs nicely with Trump’s expression in the image, "you can’t always please the person photographed."

Few people appreciate being photographed from below, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are quite powerful, the visual appeal are not flattering."

The news outlet approached the magazine for comment.