Rachele Maistrello’s photographs unite past and present. By placing a contemporary viewer in front of an antique canvas she offers the audience the opportunity to question the evidence of reality. The striking resemblance challenges the distance in time between the two portraits in the eye of the beholder. This resemblance also challenges the apparent evidence of reality in photography juxtaposed to painting: the painted person could be defined as a fictional image because the so-called ‘real’ person is contrasted with the painted bacground. Reality and depiction are represented together in the same photograph and so are defined by each other. The dual representation of the two -painting and photography - expose not only similarities but also incongruities. The photograph reveals small details that are recognizable signs of contemporaneity, like the zipper of a jacket or some very outlined facial features, but in comparison with the painted person, these details ironically become flaws that are testimony to reality. Nonetheless, the definitions of reality and fiction, created because of being each others opponents, are decomposed the moment the spectator is not simply looking at the photograph, but includes her or himself as a third person. Because, is the photographed ‘real’ person in the photograph not only another depicted, portrayed bust? Then the only real person left, becomes the one who is observing the photograph. This double spectatorship is established whe the gaze of the spectator standing in front of the photograph crosses the gaze of the turned-around museum visitor. A special connection is established in that moment, a connection that allows the spectator to travel trough time. This connection is established with the photographed person once their gazes meet. The spectator and the photographed museum visitor are contemporaries, but the resemblance with the painted person enables this connection to proceed straight to the painted figure, and breaks the boundary of time between the three of them - all united in the same moment.