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This is a glowing article in a publication that Trump has long exalted – except for one issue. The front-page image, Trump declared, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time magazine's tribute to Trump's role in mediating a Gaza ceasefire, leading its 10 November issue, was paired with a image of Trump taken from below and with the sun shining from the back.

The outcome, he says, is ""terrible".

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

“My hair was obscured, and then there was an object above my head that seemed like a hovering crown, but quite miniature. Really weird! I have consistently disliked being shot from underneath, but this is a extremely poor image, and it merits criticism. Why did they choose this, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown obvious his ambition to feature on Time’s cover and achieved this multiple times in the past year. The preoccupation has reached the president's resorts – previously, the editors demanded to remove mocked up covers on display at some of his properties.

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

The shot's viewpoint was unflattering to the president's jawline and throat – a chance that the governor of California Gavin Newsom seized, with his press office posting a modified photo with the offending area obscured.

{The hostages from Israel detained in Gaza have been freed under the initial stage of the president's diplomatic initiative, alongside a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The arrangement may become a defining accomplishment of his next term, and it may represent a key shift for that part of the world.

Simultaneously, a support for Trump's image has come from a surprising origin: the spokesperson at the Russian foreign ministry stepped in to criticise the "damaging" picture decision.

It's amazing: a image exposes those who picked it than about the person in it. Only sick people, people driven by hatred and animosity –possibly even deviants – could have selected such an image", the official posted on Telegram.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that that magazine featured on the front, even with his age-related challenges, the situation is self-revealing for the publication", she noted.

The answer to the president's inquiries – what did the editors intend, and why? – may be something to do with innovatively depicting a feeling of authority says Carly Earl, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

"The actual photo itself is well-executed," she says. "They picked this image because they wanted Trump to look heroic. Gazing upward gives a sense of their grandeur and the president's visage actually looks contemplative and almost slightly angelic. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a serene moment – the photo appears gentle."

His hair seems to vanish because the sunlight behind him has overexposed that part of the image, creating a halo effect, she says. Although the article's title marries well with his facial expression in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the person photographed."

Nobody enjoys being photographed from below, and although all of the conceptual elements of the image are quite powerful, the visual appeal are not complimentary."

The publication contacted the periodical for a statement.