A woman in Cape Van Diemen carrying her baby on her shoulders. Engraving by J.L. Copia after J. Piron, ca. 1800.

"In his book European vision and the South Pacific 1768-1850, Bernard Smith asserts that Piron's work was 'invested with a good deal of the heroic stoicism of Jacques Louis David' and draws attention to strong classical inspirations: 'a close imitation of Doryphoros, Polykleitos' ideal warrior' in a sketch he executed in the Admiralty Islands; 'the gestures of Venus de Medici' in his Femme du Cap de Diemen; and the head of Jupiter in his Sauvage de la Nouvelle Zélande."—Duycken, op.cit., 2005, p. 39