While KCNA’s news releases are restricted to foreign audiences, the photos were also publicized in the country’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun, which is widely available to North Koreans for domestic consumption.

Portraits of the country’s leaders are ubiquitous in the totalitarian state, featured everywhere from domestic households to the subway to offices, as a core feature of the cult of personality that has underpinned the family’s decadeslong rule.

Analysts said this appeared to be…