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This is a glowing story in a magazine that Trump has long exalted – but for one catch. The magazine's cover photo, the president decreed, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's paean to Trump's role in mediating a truce for Gaza, headlining its early November edition, was paired with a image of the president shot from a low angle while the sun positioned behind him.

The effect, he says, is ""extremely poor".

"Time wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time", Trump wrote on his preferred network.

“They removed my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that resembled a suspended coronet, but an remarkably little one. Quite bizarre! I consistently avoided taking pictures from low perspectives, but this is a extremely poor picture, and merits public condemnation. What are they doing, and why?”

The president has expressed obvious his ambition to be pictured on the cover of Time and did so on four occasions in the previous year. The obsession has reached the president's resorts – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove mocked up covers exhibited in several of his venues.

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

Its angle was unflattering to his chin and neck area – an opening that the governor of California Newsom did not miss, with his press office sharing an altered image with the problematic part obscured.

{The hostages from Israel held in Gaza have been liberated under the initial stage of Donald Trump's peace plan, together with a release of Palestinian detainees. This agreement could be a defining accomplishment of his next term, and it may represent a key shift for that part of the world.

Simultaneously, a support for his portrayal has emerged from an unexpected source: the director of information at Moscow's diplomatic office stepped in to condemn the "revealing" photo selection.

It's amazing: a photo reveals far more about those who selected it than about the individual pictured. Only disturbed individuals, people obsessed with malice and hatred –maybe even degenerates – could have chosen such a photo", the official posted on Telegram.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that the periodical featured on the front, notwithstanding his health issues, the story is simply self-incriminating for the publication", she noted.

The answer to Trump’s questions – what did the editors intend, and why? – may be something to do with innovatively depicting a impression of strength says a picture editor, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

"The actual photo itself is professionally taken," she says. "They chose this shot because they wanted Trump to look commanding. Gazing upward creates an impression of their importance and the president's visage actually looks thoughtful and almost somewhat divine. It’s not often you see images of the president in such a serene moment – the photo appears gentle."

His hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has overexposed that part of the image, generating a radiant circle, she explains. Even though the article's title complements his facial expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the person photographed."

Nobody enjoys being captured from low angles, and even if all of the conceptual elements of the image are quite powerful, the appearance are unflattering."

The publication contacted the periodical for feedback.