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This is a glowing story in a magazine that Donald Trump has long exalted – but for one catch. The front-page image, he stated, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time's tribute to the president's involvement in mediating a truce for Gaza, leading its 10 November issue, was presented alongside a image of the president shot from a low angle and with the sun behind his head.

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

"Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on his social media platform.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that appeared as a hovering tiara, but an remarkably little one. Quite bizarre! I consistently avoided taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and should be criticized. Why did they do this, and why?”

Trump has made clear his wish to appear on Time magazine's front page and accomplished it on four occasions in the previous year. The obsession has made it as far as Trump’s golf clubs – previously, the magazine asked him to remove fake issues exhibited in several of his venues.

The most recent cover image was captured by Graeme Sloane for Bloomberg at the White House on the fifth of October.

The shot's viewpoint did no favours for the president's jawline and throat – a chance that the governor of California Newsom took advantage of, with his communications team posting a modified photo with the criticized section obscured.

{The Israeli captives held in Gaza have been freed under the first phase of the president's diplomatic initiative, alongside a release of Palestinian detainees. The arrangement may become a defining accomplishment of the president's renewed tenure, and it could mark a key shift for that part of the world.

At the same time, a defense of his portrayal has been offered by an unexpected source: the communications chief at Moscow's diplomatic office came forward to criticise the "revealing" photo selection.

"It’s astonishing: a image says more about those who picked it than about the subject. Only disturbed individuals, people obsessed with malice and resentment –maybe even degenerates – could have selected such an image", Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

"And given the complimentary photos of President Biden that the periodical displayed on the cover, even with his age-related challenges, the case is self-damaging for the magazine", she said.

The answer to the president's inquiries – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – may be something to do with innovatively depicting a sense of power stated by a picture editor, a media professional.

The image itself technically is good," she notes. "They selected this photo because they wanted Trump to look commanding. Gazing upward evokes a feeling of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks reflective and almost a bit ethereal. It's rare you see images of the president in such a serene moment – the picture feels tender."

His hair looks erased because the rear illumination has bleached that section of the image, producing a glowing aura, she explains. And, while the feature's heading pairs nicely with Trump’s expression in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the individual in question."

"No one likes being captured from low angles, and although all of the thematic components of the image are very strong, the appearance are not complimentary."

The Guardian reached out to Time magazine for a statement.