He met Théodore Rousseau (q.v.) and Diaz de la Peña (q.v.) and was introduced to Durand-Ruel, who purchased some of his works, at that point mainly pastoral scenes and nudes. After his marriage to Pauline-Virginie Ono, he returned to Paris, painting various subjects but finding little success. The following year one portrait was accepted at the Salon, and Millet spent the winter in Cherbourg where he could make a living painting portraits.

In 1839 the first painting that Millet sent to the Salon, Saint Anne Instructing the Virgin, was refused.

To earn a living, he executed pastels and small paintings in the style of Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1729) and François Boucher (1703-1770). Within two years he had left Delaroche, and his stipend was withdrawn. Millet received a stipend from the city to move to Paris in 1837, enrolling in the École des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Delaroche (q.v.), where he met Couture (q.v.). Mouchel required his young apprentice to copy paintings in the museum in Cherbourg, where Millet had been sent to enter the studio of Lucien-Théophile Langlois (1803-1845), a former student of Gros (q.v.). Son of a wealthy farmer, Jean-François Millet studied with a portrait painter from Cherbourg, Bon du Mouchel (1807-1846), himself a student of David (q.v.).

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