On the eve of his first exhibition in Paris, he applied varnish on his canvas. The next day, the painting was in pieces. Traumatised, he would never use varnish again, which explains why a lot of his paintings have vanished. It is only thanks to Joseph Ravaisou's son that some paintings are still there to be seen. By serendipity, he was commissioned a painting for the Louvre Museum and earned 1.000 francs for it, a hefty sum at the time. This money enabled him to pay for some debts and for his trip back to Aix in October 1873. It was only in 1873 that he met Joachim Gasquet in Aix, who would turn out to be Emperaire's best friend up until his death.