After struggling at first, since he was foreign and pastel was an unfamiliar medium, he became recognized and made portraits of many prominent people including Queen Victoria.

[3] He associated with illustrious people of the time such as Victor Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartine and Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, and was a friend of the actor and playwright Frédérick Lemaître.

[2] In March 1843 Alphonse Brot wrote to Théophile Gautier asking him to take a look at his friend Gratia's Portrait d'Esther in the Salon.

[2] Gratia found a home in the palace of Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman in Fitzroy Square beside Regent's Park.

[1] At Lord Willoughby's suggestion the queen agreed to sit for Gratia, but on condition that the portrait should not be exhibited and make English painters jealous.

[3] In addition to his portraits Gratia executed a number of pastels in exquisite taste during the seventeen years of his stay in London, some of which he send to the Salons of Paris between 1850 and 1867, when he returned to France.

These included Man of arms; Turkish Corsair; Ecce Homo; Young Woman Reading; Lady Norreys; The Naturalist Verreaux.

After twenty years in Lunéville Gratin moved to nearby Nancy around 1887, to an apartment in the Stanislas district, overlooking the convent of the Assumption.

He lived in Normandy for fifteen months, during which time he received no commissions and began to run through his small savings.

He returned to Paris, where Raymond Poincaré, the Minister of Fine Arts, paid 2,000 francs to buy La Liseuse for the State.

[3] In his treatise on pastels Gratia emphasizes the importance of the quality of the crayons, which he made himself to obtain tones that were both delicate and durable.

He took great care over these pencils, sometimes using exotic pigments such as the pollen of Indian flowers or the wings of tropical butterflies.

Charles Blanc wrote of Gratia, "He is unrivaled in his genre; he knows how to give it vigor of color, harmony, warmth of tone, united with freshness and velvety hues ... "[2] An 1864 book on photography, then in its infancy, said that Gratia's works "supply the finest possible model for the imitation of the student" who was learning to color photographs using pastels.