Long before the quarantine craze for recreating famous artworks, Italian artist Luigi Ontani was busy reenacting iconic scenes from art history using himself as his subject matter. Ontani’s many hand-tinted photographic works include elaborate staged set-ups starring the artist as such discernible figures as Christ (replete with a crown of thorns), Pinocchio (with long wooden nose), Saint Sebastian (with dramatic arrow wound) and—pictured here in a striking 1975 work—the Spartan queen Leda, accompanied by her swan seducer.
