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It is a favorable feature in a publication that Trump has long exalted – except for one issue. The cover picture, the president decreed, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time magazine's paean to Donald Trump's part in mediating a ceasefire in Gaza, headlining its early November edition, was paired with a photo of Trump taken from below and with the sun positioned behind him.

The outcome, the president asserts, is "super bad".

"The publication wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the image may be the lowest quality in history", he shared on Truth Social.

“They eliminated my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a suspended coronet, but an remarkably little one. Quite bizarre! I always disliked taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a terrible picture, and deserves to be called out. Why did they do this, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown no secret of his desire to feature on Time’s cover and achieved this multiple times in the past year. The obsession has reached Trump’s golf clubs – in 2017, the publication requested to remove mocked up covers exhibited in some of his properties.

This issue's photograph was captured by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the presidential residence on the fifth of October.

The shot's viewpoint was unflattering to his chin and neck area – a chance that the governor of California Gavin Newsom did not miss, with his communications team tweeting a version with the problematic part obscured.

{The hostages from Israel in Gaza have been freed under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, together with a freeing of Palestinian inmates. This agreement might turn into a signature achievement of the president's renewed tenure, and it may represent a strategic turning point for that part of the world.

Meanwhile, a defense of his portrayal has emerged from a surprising origin: the spokesperson at the Russian foreign ministry stepped in to condemn the "damaging" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a photo reveals far more about those who picked it than about the subject. Only disturbed individuals, people filled with spite and hatred –possibly even deviants – could have selected such an image", she shared on her social channel.

Considering the favorable images of Biden that the same publication displayed on the cover, even with his age-related challenges, the case is self-damaging for the publication", she added.

The explanation for his queries – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – might involve creatively capturing a sense of power according to Carly Earl, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

"The actual photo itself is well-executed," she says. "They picked this image because they wanted the president to look heroic. Gazing upward creates an impression of their importance and Trump’s face actually looks contemplative and almost somewhat divine. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a serene moment – the image has a softness to it."

His hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has overexposed that part of the image, generating a radiant circle, she says. Although the feature's heading complements the president's look in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the person photographed."

"No one likes being captured from low angles, and even if all of the conceptual elements of the image are quite powerful, the appearance are unflattering."

The Guardian contacted Time magazine for comment.