In 1674, he was received into the Academy as a history painter, with a reception piece (morceau de réception) entitled Mercure coupant la tête d'Argus ('Mercury cutting off the head of Argus').

[4][6] Troy's early known works include tapestry designs for Madame de Montespan, one of the many mistresses of Louis XIV of France, and paintings with religious and mythological subjects.

[9] In the 1690s, Troy became the principal painter to the court of King James II in exile at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he was the master of Alexis Simon Belle.

[10] By the years 1698 to 1701, a period of peace between France and Great Britain, Jacobites could cross the English Channel carrying portraits of James Francis Edward Stuart and his sister Princess Louisa Maria.

Troy was then James II's only court painter and needed the help of Belle, his best student, to produce the many portraits commissioned from him.