As interpretations continue into Melania Trump’s official portrait, commentators expect the US first lady to embrace her second time in the White House, especially without step-daughter Ivanka.

Melania’s portrait, which will head the first lady’s official web page and be included in the US National Archives, was released this week to much speculation.

The portrait, taken by Trump insider Régine Mahaux, shows Melania, 54, dressed in a Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo, silhouetted against a large window with the Washington Monument emerging behind her.

Her hands are tented in a ‘power pose’ on a broad, polished  desk polished office desk.

She appears to be promoting her husband’s former reality show, The Apprentice, rather than sitting for a photographic portrait.

The answer could be Trump’s renewed willingness to engage with her role as first lady for Donald Trump’s second stint as US president – with some saying the absence of Ivanka Trump from the White House gives her more opportunity to assert herself.

Ivanka was an adviser to her father during his first term from 2016 to 2020, and regularly met US Cabinet members and foreign leaders.

Trump’s daughter with Ivana Trump decided to eschew involvement in the Trump 2.0 administration, leaving Melania as the lone female Trump in the White House.

Appearing on The Skinny Confidential podcast this month Ivanka rejected a return to the White House, saying she “hates politics” and the “darkness” that surrounds “that world”.

“At the end of the day, Melania Trump has always been a woman that has done it her way, and she will pick and choose how she wants to deploy her time and influence and not what other people want her to do,” Anita McBride, director of the First Ladies Initiative at American University, told US public broadcaster NPR this week.

Melania had a conspicuous presence at her husband’s inauguration and has already travelled with her husband last week to Western North Carolina to visit communities hit by Hurricane Helene.

“I want to thank our great first lady for coming today,” the President said. “She really wanted to be here.”

She was also beside her husband as he visited the fire-ravaged areas of Los Angeles on the weekend, in what many commentators say is an early sign she is ready to play an active role as the President’s wife.

Melania has shown more willingness to join her husband. Photo: AAP

Before Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration, Melania told Fox and Friends on the Murdoch-owned Fox News, she was already  “packed” and had chosen the furniture she wanted to bring to the White House.

She also hinted at taking a bigger role in Donald Trump’s second administration.

“Maybe some people, they see me as just the wife of the president,” she during the wide-ranging interview. “But I’m standing on my own two feet, independent.

“I have my own thoughts, I have my own yes and no. I don’t always agree what my husband is saying or doing, and that’s OK,” Trump added.

McBride said perceptions that Melania didn’t want to play the first lady role “are all erased now”.

She said there was an increase in “self-assuredness” that came from having already been a first lady.

“Mrs Trump walks into the role of first lady the second time knowing how the White House works, knowing what she needs in her own personal staff,” McBride said.

“At the end of the day, Melania Trump has always been a woman that has done it her way, and she will pick and choose how she wants to deploy her time and influence and not what other people want her to do,” she added.