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It is a positive article in a magazine that Donald Trump has frequently admired – with one exception. The cover picture, the president decreed, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time magazine's tribute to Donald Trump's part in brokering a truce for Gaza, headlining its early November edition, was paired with a photograph of Trump taken from below and with the sun shining from the back.

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

"Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the most awful ever", the president posted on Truth Social.

“They removed my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that resembled a suspended coronet, but an remarkably little one. Quite bizarre! I never liked taking pictures from low perspectives, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What is their intention, and why?”

The president has expressed no secret of his desire to be pictured on Time’s cover and achieved this four times last year. This fixation has extended to his golf courses – previously, the magazine asked him to remove fabricated front pages shown in a few of his establishments.

The latest edition’s photo was shot by a photographer for Bloomberg at the White House on October 5.

Its angle was unflattering to his chin and neck area – a chance that the governor of California Newsom seized, with the governor's office sharing an altered image with the problematic part pixelated.

{The living Israeli hostages in Gaza have been released under the opening part of Donald Trump's peace plan, alongside a release of Palestinian detainees. The arrangement may become a major success of his next term, and it might signify a strategic turning point for the region.

Meanwhile, a support for his portrayal has emerged from an unexpected source: the communications chief at Moscow's diplomatic office intervened to condemn the "revealing" picture decision.

It's remarkable: a photo says more about those who selected it than about the subject. Just unwell persons, people filled with spite and resentment –perhaps even perverts – could have chosen such a photo", Maria Zakharova posted on Telegram.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that the same publication displayed on the cover, despite his physical infirmity, the story is simply self-incriminating for Time", she added.

The answer to Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – could be related to innovatively depicting a feeling of authority according to a picture editor, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The photograph technically is well-executed," she says. "They chose this shot because they wanted the president to look commanding. Gazing upward gives a sense of their majesty and his expression actually looks reflective and almost a bit ethereal. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a serene moment – the picture feels tender."

The president's hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has bleached that section of the image, generating a radiant circle, she adds. And, while the story’s headline complements his facial expression in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the individual in question."

Nobody enjoys being shot from underneath, and although all of the thematic components of the image are highly effective, the visual appeal are not flattering."

The Guardian reached out to the magazine for a statement.