Upon his return to France in 1859, Degas moved into a Paris studio large enough to permit him to begin painting "The Bellelli Family"—an imposing canvas he intended for exhibition in the Salon, although it remained unfinished until 1867. He also began work on several history paintings: "Alexander and Bucephalus" and "The Daughter of Jephthah" in 1859–60; "Sémiramis Building Babylon" in 1860; and "Young Spartans" around 1860. In 1861 Degas visited his childhood friend Paul Valpinçon in Normandy, and made the earliest of his many studies of horses. He exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1865, when the jury accepted his painting "Scene of War in the Middle Ages", which attracted little attention.