After his return to Lyon in 1836, Janmot would attract the attention of critics of the Salon de Paris in conducting large-scale paintings with religious inspiration such as "The Resurrection of the son of the widow of Nain" (1839) or "Christ in Gethsemane" (1840). After 1845, he attracted the interest of Charles Baudelaire with his painting "Flower of the Fields" that allowed him to access to the Salon of 1846. Theophile Gautier was impressed by his "Portrait of Lacordaire" (1846). But the failure of his "Poem of the Soul" at the Universal Exhibition of 1855 disappointed him. In December of that year he married Leonie Saint-Paulet, from a noble family in Carpentras.