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This is a favorable feature in a publication that Donald Trump has frequently admired – except for one issue. The front-page image, Trump declared, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's tribute to Trump's role in mediating a truce for Gaza, featured on its November 10 cover, was accompanied by a photograph of the president captured from underneath and with the sun behind his head.

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

"Time wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the image may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on his social media platform.

“My hair was obscured, and then there was something floating my head that looked like a suspended diadem, but extremely small. Very odd! I have never liked being photographed from below, but this is a extremely poor image, and it merits criticism. What are they doing, and why?”

Trump has made clear his wish to feature on the cover of Time and did so four times last year. This fixation has reached the president's resorts – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove mocked up covers on display at some of his properties.

The most recent cover image was shot by a photographer for Bloomberg at the presidential residence on the fifth of October.

The perspective was unflattering to the president's jawline and throat – a chance that California governor Newsom seized, with his press office posting a modified photo with the criticized section pixelated.

{The Israeli captives in Gaza have been freed under the first phase of the president's diplomatic initiative, alongside a freeing of Palestinian inmates. This agreement might turn into a signature achievement of his next term, and it might signify a strategic turning point for the Middle East.

Meanwhile, a defence of Trump's image has come from unusual quarters: the director of information at the Russian foreign ministry stepped in to condemn the "revealing" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a photograph says more about those who chose it than about the person in it. Only disturbed individuals, people obsessed with malice and animosity –perhaps even perverts – could have chosen such a photo", Maria Zakharova shared on her social channel.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that that magazine used on the cover, despite his physical infirmity, the situation is self-revealing for Time", she added.

The response to Trump’s questions – what did the editors intend, and why? – may be something to do with creatively capturing a sense of power stated by a picture editor, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The image itself is well-executed," she says. "They selected this photo because they wanted trump to look commanding. Gazing upward gives a sense of their grandeur and his expression actually looks thoughtful and almost slightly angelic. It's rare you see images of the president in such a peaceful state – the picture feels tender."

His hair seems to vanish because the sunlight behind him has washed out that area of the image, generating a radiant circle, she explains. Even though the feature's heading complements the president's look in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the individual in question."

Few people appreciate being shot from underneath, and even if all of the conceptual elements of the image are very strong, the visual appeal are not flattering."

The Guardian approached the magazine for comment.