During the same years he frequented the Bertins' salon, alongside the main writers and artists of the time (a sketch of his for a portrait of Victor Hugo survives). He produced two frescoes for this salon, destroyed in 1854. After the 1848 Revolution Mottez set out for the United Kingdom, where he produced several portraits of British nobles and personalities and the exiled minister François Guizot, which were exhibited at the Royal Academy salons. He was an excellent portraitist throughout his career and it was that which mainly occupied him in the last years of his career. He returned to France in 1853 and worked with Delacroix at the Église Saint-Sulpice, at the start of the 1860s, where their highly opposed styles clearly showed the struggle between the neo-classical and romantic visions. Maurice Denis considered these frescoes at St-Sulpice (another "Saint Martin") as "unforgettable". He designed the stained glass windows at the église Saint-Maurice de Lille.