By the late 1820s he had become a popular caricaturist enjoying particular success with his collections Tableau de Paris and Galerie des Épicuriens.

His most famous creation during this period was the character "Mayeaux" (sometimes spelled "Mahieux") a hunchback who came to represent all the faults and foibles of the bourgeoisie who were the principle supporters of Louis Philippe.

The character, which first appeared in the pages of La Caricature in 1831, was the inspiration for several other satirists including Daumier, Grandville, and Honoré de Balzac.

[4][7] Following the assassination attempt on Louis Philippe in July 1835, a law was passed on 9 September 1835 forbidding political caricatures and articles critical of the king.

In light of the subsequent fines and imprisonments imposed on the press for violations of this law, Traviès, like many of his colleagues, turned his attention to satirizing French customs and culture.

He also provided illustrations for Balzac's La Comédie humaine and Eugène Sue's Les Mystères de Paris as well as producing many depictions of the Parisian poor and their daily life.

[11] Traviès's lithograph portrait of the opera singer Elisa Julian, published in the journal La Sylphide in 1840 and exhibited at the Paris Salons of 1848 and 1855, was particularly admired by the writer Alfred Deberle.

During the late 1830s Traviès also produced lithograph portraits of the composer Ferdinand Hérold and statesman Dupont de l'Eure as well as Galerie des Illustrations Scientifiques, a series of portraits of prominent French doctors and scientists which were published in Charivari and separately as prints by Maison Aubert.

[8] The art critic Champfleury, who knew Traviès in his later years, described his studio as filled with unfinished religious paintings by a painter who appeared to have lost his confidence.