He travelled to Fougères in Ille-et-Vilaine then at Morlaix in Finistère. After the 1848 Revolution he returned to the United Kingdom where he specialized in orientalist subjects, became a member of the New Society of Painters in Water Colours and had a major success with the businessmen of Manchester, making paintings crammed full of detail for them. In 1851 his admirer Queen Victoria commissioned paintings of Liverpool and Manchester to celebrate her visit there, which remain in the Royal Collection along with examples of his orientalist works. His "View of Manchester" has become an iconic image of the 19th-century Cottonopolis. In 1852 the Queen invited him to her summer residence at Balmoral Castle to draw its surroundings. He then continued to live in Paris and exhibit at various salons. He was invited to the festivities for Queen Victoria's visit to France in 1855 (the first by a British head of state since 1520), at which he produced a monumental view of château de Saint-Cloud. He participated in the 1855 Exposition in the Pavillon des Arts at the request of Comte Émilien de Nieuwerkerke, effectively French arts minister, on which occasion he was given the Légion d'honneur. He remained active until his last breath, dying in his Paris home in 1889. His widow continued to take pupils, among them Nina Fagnani.